Computer Phone Messages Increase School Registration

09/01/2006
By Pauline Masson Pacific Editor
The Missourian

Computer-generated phone calls that allowed three Meramec Valley School District principals to remind parents of registration day was a hit with parents and administrators. School Information Software (SIS) offers the program, which allows schools to target a specific group of parents or students from the school computer database, record a 30- second message and have the calls made simultaneously.
Betting that even busy parents who normally reject computerized telephone calls would recognize the familiar voice of the principal and listen to the message, Cheryl Schlemper, Meramec Valley technology director, asked the three principals to give the computerized calls a try. The program, titled School Reach, is designed to help schools notify parents of school closings, but the system is so sophisticated that it could be used to convey information on dozens of school programs that parents might need.
"We could actually call any group of parents to make any kind of short announcement," said Tom Sauvage, Pacific High School principal, one of three administrators asked to perform a pilot call using the system.
Pacific High School, Riverbend School and Meramec Valley Middle School (MVMS) principals used the calls to remind parents that registration was the following day. Within 20 minutes after the automated calls went out, a report was generated identifying which calls went through and which did not.
"On the ones that didn't go through we had to do a little backtracking to find out why and reach those parents," said Russ Rowbottom, MVMS principal.
Parents who got the automated calls said the program was "awesome" and more reliable than notes sent home or mailed.
"It was very personable," said Christy Gilcrease, who received three of the recorded messages on her answering machine.
Sauvage recorded messages four evenings in a row reminding parents about registration for a specific class.
Melanie Gilcrease, who is a freshman, checked the answering machine and told her mother the school had called. The following day there was another message about sophomore registration for her brother Philip.
A week later the distinctive voice of Eric Smith, Pacific High School assistant principal, was on the Gilcrease answering machine announcing the time and benefits of freshman orientation.
Denise Marhanka was familiar with the personalized message because her daughter Holley's softball coach had used the system to notify parents of practice.
"I love it," Marhanka said. "You can leave it on the machine in case you need to listen to it again."
Becky Baxa, whose son Michael is a junior, said the timeliness of the message was right for busy parents.
"If the school needs to convey something with a lot of detail, I'd probably rather have it in writing, like in the newsletter, but for just a reminder the day before the event, we loved it," Baxa said. "It didn't sound like a recording, Mr. Sauvage's voice was so welcoming."
Sauvage, Smith, Rowbottom and Gary Peck, Riverbend principal, all used the pilot program to make hundreds of telephone calls simultaneously. After sending the recorded messages, all three schools recorded the largest registration turnout ever. The program is user friendly and can be accomplished "in a matter of 20 minutes," Peck said.
Principals can trigger the calls by going into the SIS Internet page or by telephone. They identify the group of students whose parents will be called through the school computer, record a 30-second message to parents and click "call" to make the calls.
"The hardest part is recording the message," Rowbottom said. "I wrote mine down and practiced it a couple of times. It was 32 seconds long so I had to make it shorter."
Superintendent Randy George said after the response from the principals he and Schlemper would compare the SIS system with two similar programs to identify the best buy for the district.
"We actually got a larger test from this pilot program than the company originally offered," George said. "They originally offered to let us make 300 calls, but Cheryl (Schlemper) told them we wanted a pilot that was a real school situation."
George said after comparing service, features and cost of the three programs, he and Schlemper would ask the school board to institute the program throughout the district.
"We were looking for a way to improve communication with parents," George said. The program has obvious advantages over e-mail, he said, because not all families have home computers connected to the Internet.
Parents are accustomed to phone messages from the school, but the traditional phone bank where one parent telephoned another parent, and the message was relayed through a series of calls, has its drawbacks.
"By the time the message got restated several times it's possible that it changed a little," George said. "The beauty of this is that every parents gets exactly the same information. This looks like a real effective way to get the same message out there to the parents."