As a leading provider of parent notification service supporting thousands of schools coast-to-coast, our clients use of our service frequently makes headline news. Below is a summary of some of the stories about SchoolReach making the papers, journals and other publications.
Our Lady of Grace in Pittsburgh, PA just won the SchoolReach Catholic Schools Week Contest. Principal Lindsey Pfister is going to use the winnings to fund a service project for her school during Catholic Schools Week.
Lake City Public Schools, located in Lake City, Minnesota went into lockdown after a local police officer was shot in the head. The schools used their new SchoolReach notification system to keep parents informed and children safe.
SchoolReach User Story Grand Prize Winner St. Peter Kirkwood School in Kirkwood, MO tells their story of how they called themselves in Italy and helped achieve the best survey response they've ever had.
SchoolReach to the rescue. A water main break on a recent Monday morning provided the Hills-Beaver Creek administration an opportunity to put their new SchoolReach program to work.
Last week we celebrated "Customer Service Week" here at SchoolReach and had themed events all week culminating in some fun and games in our break room. The final game was a "shake off" between all game winners. How did it end...well, you just have to watch the video to see...
Less than a month after the SchoolReach for Android™ App was released with much fanfare, the SchoolReach® for iPhone® App has hit the proverbial shelves. Now both iPhone and Android users have a convenient mobile version of SchoolReach in the palm of their hands.
The parent alert system capacity of SchoolReach is expanding! We are currently in the final stages of increasing capacity of our Dallas co-location facility that will double its broadcast capacity. This move is in response to both total customer growth and increasing phone notification use by existing customers.
Launching school notifications and alerts just got easier with SchoolReach® for Android™, a convenient new mobile version of SchoolReach Instant Parent Contact released today. The new application, developed by in-house SchoolReach engineers, provides school administrators with full access to their SchoolReach system from any Android-based mobile device. Apps for iPhone® and iPad® due to follow in days...
Schools along the eastern seaboard from North Carolina to Maine made good use of their school notification and alert system, provided by SchoolReach to alert parents and community members of school closing and reopening plans due to Hurricane Irene.
Waverly Community Schools, MI has entered into a school notification and alert case study with SchoolReach Instant Parent Contact. The purpose of the program is to benchmark the impact of the SchoolReach automated parent notification program on such metrics as parent involvement, average daily attendance, AYP, and negative lunch balances. The program runs throughout the 2011-2012 school year and will culminate in several case studies written around Waverly's results and experience.
St. Louis City Public School District made innovative use of their SchoolReach school notification system to help encourage and increase attendance on the first day of school today. St. Louis City school officials reached out to Steven Jackson, running back for the St. Louis Rams to record a message that was broadcast to all school families and parents over the weekend prior to the first day of school.
SchoolReach, the national school notification provider serving the K-12 market, has announced a new preferred provider relationship with School Webmasters. The program will enable School Webmasters and SchoolReach to cross promote each others services to their respective clientele.
SchoolReach is proud to announce our participation in the St. Louis Catholic elementary schools’ school book and school supply drive to benefit Catholic and other schools and students in Joplin that were devastated by the recent EF5 tornado. SchoolReach will be underwriting the fuel costs associated with the delivery to Joplin.
SchoolReach has announced the addition of three new features: social media integration, staff-level broadcast messaging and a new toll-free message retrieval line.
Kirkwood School District, a longtime SchoolReach customer, has earned the highly regarded distinction as having the Missouri Teacher of the Year within their walls. Congratulations Kirkwood, and congratulations
GroupCast, LLC, the parent company of SchoolReach Instant Parent Contact, one of the leading providers of automated school notification services has surpassed its two-millionth individual broadcast event, doubling the prior one-million mark in just over 16 months. Total broadcast volume for GroupCast, now in its ninth year of operation, exceeds 353 million recorded voice message calls.
As a fun way to promote the use of SchoolReach to increase fundraising efforts and attendance at special events like Fish Fry's, we invite you to submit your most creative or unique Fish Fry voice broadcast message and get entered into our contest.
Lead-Deadwood School District in South Dakota has begun using SchoolReach's CyberBully Hotline. It has been in place since 12/1/2010 and has received about a dozen calls form bullying victims and eyewitnesses since that time. Most incidents occured off of school grounds.
SchoolReach, and its parent company GroupCast, LLC, have completed a transaction to acquire the digital sign control and management technology assets of Sensory Ventures, LLC. The move provides SchoolReach access to digital sign and display management technology capable of centrally controlling the displays of PCs, monitors, smart boards, digital signs, and other internet addressable displays
User Story Grand Prize Winner Edge High School in Tucson, AZ. Edge HS students responded to a tragedy that happened in their backyard with an impressive community fundraising effort.
Between January 31st and February 3rd, 2011, a massive ice, sleet and snow storm rolled across much of the United States. The storm covered 39 states, with snowfall accumulations reaching over 20 inches in some areas, triggering a wave of school cancellations, early dismissals and late starts.
A lockdown announcement was triggered by Carroll County Intermediate School in Hillsville, VA after school officials were notified by a parent that a student may have brought a firearm to school. Principal Chuck Thompson alerted parents via SchoolReach that students were safe in their classrooms while police searched for the weapons and took the students in question into custody.
2010 ended with a bang for residents of Sunset Hills, MO. An F3 tornado ripped through the suburban St. Louis city where SchoolReach is headquartered. The need for geographic redundancy in a mass notification provider was clearly evidenced by this natural disaster.
ST. LOUIS, MO, DECEMBER 29, 2010 – SchoolReach Instant Parent Contact, a division of GroupCast, LLC headquartered in Sunset Hills, announced today that Tim MacNair will be its new Director of Sales. MacNair will lead the sales team, help define market strategy and outline the goals of the Sales Division.
As snow falls, parents in the Corry Area School District in Northwestern Pennsylvania have begun hearing the sound of SchoolReach. Corry Area School District uses SchoolReach for a multitude of reasons, only some of which are two-hour delays, school closings, early dismissals and the postponement of after-school activities.
Cyberbullying Hotline and “It’s Your Call” Learning Simulation Game Packaged to Aid Administrators - In response to growing pressure on school administrators to address rampant cyberbullying and student-on-student harassment, Web Wise Kids and SchoolReach Instant Parent Contact have teamed up to create a complete cyberbullying program. The program offers a bundle of cyberbullying prevention and response services which leverage the unique strengths of both SchoolReach and Web Wise Kids.
A significant milestone was passed in August 2010, when the Missouri Alert Network entered into its 4th year of operation. The state-wide alert program stemmed from a public-private cooperative effort between the Missouri Department of Public Safety (MO DPS), the Missouri School Boards Association (MSBA) and GroupCast, LLC.
The parent notification and school emergency messaging abilities for thousands of schools have been increased with release of SchoolReach 3.0. New interface speeds parent notifications and alerts.
The city of Clarksville, MO sent out a GroupCast alert notifying residents that they were under a boil order. Recipients of the message were advised not only to boil water but also to come to a specific location to get potable or bottled water from the city.
Minnesota-based volunteer network, RSVP, used the GroupCast instant notification system to help an elderly woman this winter. She was in dire circumstances as her furnace stopped working and it was 26 degrees below zero outside.
Parents at Kingsley Junior High School in Normal, IL were alerted to the sudden death of a 7th grader via a SchoolReach alert sent by a school official. The student had collapsed after what school officials called friendly "horseplay" in the lavatory between class periods.
The National Rural Education Association, it its monthly membership newsletter, spotlighted the SchoolReach EZ Lunch Balance program as means to help school districts manage lunch debt.
The SchoolReach parent notification system has announced an expanded partnership with the Southeast Kansas Education Service Center (Greenbush). Through the partnership agreement, the SchoolReach parent notification system will be made available to all Kansas schools at an exclusive discount.
Service Center to use Automated Notification System to Improve Communications with Member Districts plus Extends Special Pricing and Terms to Member Districts
The District will also utilize a system called SchoolReach. SchoolReach allows parent/guardian contact phone numbers to be called automatically by a voice.
GroupCast, one of the country’s leading providers of instant messaging notification services, announced today that it has surpassed its one-millionth individual broadcast event, which totals over 233 million calls. This milestone comes almost seven years to the day the company was launched.
To ensure rapid communication to parents on the H1N1 virus, the Washington School District is participating in a notification program being offered by the Missouri School Boards Association and SchoolReach Instant Parent Contact.
For Brenda Speer, superintendent of Bynum Independent School District, striking a balance between cutting expenses, but not eliminating important programs and services, lit up the light bulb over her head: Would it be possible to save the district more than $700 a month in postage expenses alone by implementing a tech-based parental notification system?
Broadcast or mass notification systems enable administrators to efficiently place hundreds or even thousands of calls per hour and, to an extent, replace other communication vehicles, such as newsletters, Web site postings, or the weekly distribution of manila envelopes.
Beginning this fall, parents of Mineral County School students will be able to receive notices of school closings or other emergencies almost instantaneously, thanks to SchoolReach, the fastest-growing parental notification service used among K-12 public schools in the United States.
SchoolReach, the fastest-growing parent notification service used among K-12 public schools in the United States, has been chosen by Magazine Public Schools to implement the SchoolReach Instant Parent Contact system.
Nine schools in the Catholic Diocese of Savannah — including three in Middle Georgia — are turning to an automated phone messaging system to notify parents of emergencies.
What started out as a prank phone call could end with serious consequences for two Fulton teens after they made a bomb threat regarding Fulton High School Tuesday afternoon.
How does a retailer morph the inadvertent selling of dangerous products and its dusty CRM program into a public relations victory? The answer is as old as the telephone. In fact, the answer is the telephone.
MT. VERNON -- At least two area schools have signed on to a new service which is designed to send out notifications to parents electronically.
SchoolReach is an instant parent contact program which has been purchased by District 80 and by the Mt. Vernon Township High School. Emergency announcements and general information calls can be made within minutes to large groups of people, according to Christine Skillian of School Reach.
Gov. Matt Blunt today announced all public and independent higher education institutions have an official contact on file with the Missouri Alert Network, fulfilling another recommendation from his Campus Security Task Force to improve communication to make our colleges and universities safer.
Although the gas leak near Cold Springs schools was just hot air, the scenario used during a mock emergency drill Monday made sure students and school officials were ready for the real deal.
Officials said students, teacher and administrators were able to rise to the occasion, evacuating the school quickly.
GroupCast Messaging systems, a leader in the emerging automated call notification industry, has partnered with the Crocker School District to implement GroupCast’s SchoolReach system. The SchoolReach system, already in use in many school districts nationwide, was designed to provide a recorded message from a school official to parents for emergency purposes or for a general announcement.
A bomb threat at Pikeland Community school tested the emergency response of both school administrators and law enforcement Monday afternoon. A note of threatening nature was found near the end of the school day Monday at Pikeland Community School. The note was found in the northern pod of the building. The northern pod houses sixth, seventh and eighth grades. The note said a bomb would go off at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
Miles of closures and major renovation along a highway used to ferry thousands of children to school could mean countless delays over two years. But the Voluntary Interdistrict Choice Corporation is helping parents by sending pre-recorded messages on traffic delays.
Governor Matt Blunt has announced that colleges and universities in Missouri are now eligible to sign up for the Missouri Alert Network. The network allows state officials to notify schools throughout Missouri within minutes in the event of an emergency or an extraordinary situation that impacts student safety and security. The program is the result of a partnership between the state of Missouri and the Missouri School Boards’ Association.
In the past, parents were forced to wake up early in order to watch a scrolling message at the bottom of their television screen to find out if school was canceled. If the weather causes school closings this week, parents in the North Callaway School District and the Missouri School for the Deaf will receive a call from their child's principal letting them know.
A new emergency evacuation plan was put to the test at Hillsboro Primary School Tuesday, as 880 kindergarten, first and second graders were evacuated after a small kitchen fire. The plan included using the SchoolReach system to notify parents.
When inclement weather forces cancellations or emergencies strike, the Easton School District can call parents and students quickly thanks to a new communication system. The SchoolReach System allows administrators to notify parents in a matter of minutes, eliminating clumsy telephone trees and announcements run by the media.
If it is necessary to announce a snow day in Jefferson County, many public and private school officials turn to the SchoolReach system to spread the word. The system, from GroupCast Messaging systems, provides a recorded message from a school official to parents for emergency purposes or for a general announcement. The announcement is sent to a list of families simultaneously.
In December 2007 SchoolReach announced a user story contest to gather feedback from our customers on how they use SchoolReach to impact school-to-parent communications. We had many responses demonstrating a range of uses from unplanned school cancelations to requests for prom volunteers. We hope you find the collection of customer stories below informative on the many many ways that SchoolReach can impact parent and staff communications at your school.
A new system designed to contact Unit 5 parents and guardians in an emergency worked fairly well in its first real use. Parents generally said they were pleased about being notified about an incident involving what could have been a weapon.
Since the days of the one-room schoolhouse, parents have been subject to the grind of the rumor mill.
Back then, rumors spread slowly, but with today's close-knit, electronically connected parent communities, rumors spread rapidly and become a source of major frustration for school administrators. With thousands of minor incidents each year in schools across the country, abating gossip is part of a school administrator's job. This can be even more nerve-racking than the actual event.
With bomb scares and lockdowns a part of the daily vocabulary in schools across the nation, automated messaging systems are just one step schools are taking to keep parents involved and aware.
Contacting the parents of Lindbergh School District student in an emergency will soon be made easier by a new call system to be provided by SchoolReach.
The Lindbergh School District has approved SchoolReach, a division of St. Louis-based GroupCast Messaging Systems LLC, to provide a call system in which parents can be alerted quickly about a district emergency or an incident at a single building.
Parents of St. Louis area and other Midwestern cities woke up to a phone call their kids wanted to receive and the parents didn’t – a school snow closing announcement delivered by SchoolReach, the education service division of St. Louis based GroupCast messaging.
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.
SchoolReach 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.
Every school has undoubtedly had the need - or thought about it - to contact large groups of parents at the same time, often as quickly as possible. It may just be a late change in a meeting or event schedule, but it could involve a more urgent notification, such an unplanned dismissal due to weather, power outage, or school evacuation.