The Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies (AEPA) Endorses SchoolReach

ST. LOUIS, MO., December 21, 2009 - The Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies (AEPA) unanimously voted to endorse SchoolReach Instant Parent Contact to be a contracted vendor for automated parent notification services.

SchoolReach Instant Parent Contact, one of the leading parent notification companies in the country, was one of three to be approved by the AEPA from a slate of eleven parent notification companies submitting proposals.

As a national non-profit purchasing consortium, the AEPA researches and secures national contracts for services, products and supplies that are highly utilized and desired by schools. "The AEPA's request for proposal (RFP) and vendor vetting process satisfies state-level bid solicitation requirements," said Tom Post, AEPA president. "This allows our member schools and districts to make purchases directly, eliminating the need to issue their own RFP, saving them time and money."

"The AEPA's decision is a national validation of the quality and value that SchoolReach delivers," said Paul Langhorst, SchoolReach's chief marketing officer. Langhorst said that SchoolReach offers robust communication features accessed through a user-friendly web interface and SchoolReach does not outsource capacity to broadcast aggregators, allowing the company to fully control their customers' broadcast experience. "SchoolReach has patent-pending technology, which accurately identifies cell phones and prevents the overloading of local telephone switching offices - it's quite a package for the price."

Once thought of as a tool for sending only school cancellations and emergency notifications, administrators and school officials have found that utilizing automated phone messaging solutions to send non-emergent phone, email and text messages to parents is saving thousands of dollars while simultaneously increasing parent response and involvement. Schools that have replaced paper handouts with parent broadcast systems are seeing a huge reduction in budgetary expenses, with some schools saving over 30% in paper and production costs.

"The AEPA is one of the country's top education purchasing co-ops. They exemplify quality for education purchases and save schools significant time and money on critical purchases," said Langhorst. "We are very proud to have their endorsement."

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ABOUT SCHOOLREACH - SchoolReach is a subsidiary of St. Louis-based GroupCast, an instant messaging notification company which specializes in education, government and healthcare mass communication. For cancellations, schedule changes, absentee notification, emergency notification general announcements and rumor control, SchoolReach simultaneously delivers educators' personally recorded message to tens, hundreds or thousands of individuals in just minutes. Learn more about SchoolReach or GroupCast at www.schoolreach.com and www.groupcast.com.

ABOUT AEPA - The Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies (AEPA) was formed in May of 2000 as a cooperative, unincorporated effort. The AEPA incorporated in 2007 and now offers secured bid contracts in 23 states covering multiple product and service categories from building services to educational software solutions. For more information go to www.aepecoop.org

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Media Contacts:

Paul Langhorst @ 314-748-5026 or planghorst@groupcast.com

Sophia Tarlas @ 314-748-5033 or starlas@schoolreach.com