SchoolReach
The Schools New Telephone Broadcast Service
by Karma Dannatt and Superintendent Peterson
April 07, 2008
In our efforts to improve communications between parents and school, starting April 9th Ainsworth Community Schools is instituting a telephone broadcast system that will enable school personnel to notify all households and parents by phone within minutes of an emergency or unplanned event that causes early dismissal, school cancellation or late start. The service may also be used from time-to-time to communicate general announcements or reminders. This service is provided by SchoolReach, which specializes in school-to-parent communications. Ainsworth Community Schools will continue to report school closings due to snow or weather on Radio Station KBRB and the TV Channel KOLN 10-11 and will use this system as an overlay to the public announcements.
When used, the service will simultaneously call all listed phone numbers in our parent contact list and will deliver a recorded message from the school administrators. The service will deliver the message to both live answer and answering machines. No answers and busies will be automatically retried twice in 15 minute intervals after the initial call
NOTE: All information and contact numbers are strictly secure and confidential and are only used for the purposes described herein.
Here is some specific information you should know.
• Caller ID: The Call ID will display 402-387-2333, which is the main number for Ainsworth Community Schools.
• Live Answers: There is a short pause at the beginning of the message, usually just a few seconds. Answer your phone as you normally would “Hello” and hold for the message to begin. Multiple “Hello’s” or background noise will delay the message. Inform all family members of this process who may answer your phone.
• Answering Machines: The system will detect that your machine has answered and will play the recording to your machine. The maximum numbers of rings before hang up is 5. Make sure your machine answers after 4 rings or you may miss the message.
• Message Repeat: At the end of the message you will be prompted to ‘press one’ to hear the message again. This is very effective when a child answers the phone and hands it to a parent, who can then ‘Repeat’ the message in its entirety.
• Lunch Balances and Attendance: Our School will soon be using
SchoolReach for lunch balances, you will be notified daily if your
child’s lunch account is in need of attention. We may also expand
this with calls about student absences.
If you have any questions, please contact the District Office.
If you do not want to be a part of this service contact the school. We will soon send out some test message(s). For the remainder of this year we will use home phone numbers, but will expand to cell and other numbers you choose early next school year.
