Is this a new way for schools to save money?

[usnuzuloose]

Okay is this just new to me or is this happening in your area? I came home one day and was listening to the messages on my home phone and there was a message from the school district. Since then I have been getting calls with prerecorded messages about meetings, or events going on. Now mind you I do not have children in school anymore. Is this there way of saving money? No typed letters anymore.

So I am assuming that if you live in the district regaurdless if you have children or not you are going to get this call. Would love to here if anyone knows about this. Thanks Jo

 

[allison443]

Our school uses the "Honeywell instant alert system". They are automated calls about upcoming events, reminders to send back forms or paperwork, if the cafeteria menu changes, if there is a closing due to snow, even things like if a suspicious person had approached a child in town.

In our case this eliminated the phone calls that the class parents had to make. You can sign up several numbers (home, work, cell) to make sure the messages are received. I think it is turning out to be more effective and calls are all made at the same time, same info is conveyed, etc.

They should be able to give you an opt-out provision for your system, I would think.

 

[golfgal]

Our district just started an automated call system to use for emergencies-school closings, etc. They don't use it to send out notifications of lunch menu changes or anything like that. Honestly, I think it is more of a CYA move than anything since so many parents feel the need to know every little detail about everything that goes on in school. Most of the time we see the school closing on TV before we get the automated call.

 

[MnMomtoboys]

Ours have been doing this a couple of years now. My only complaint is when they call with a low lunch balance they don't tell me for which kid. Otherwise I like it. I'm good with forgeting things.

Another thing our district is doing is checking with our ins. compainies if they will cover speech, pt, ot and other special ed services.

 

[crusoe2]

OP is it possible that someone has listed you as an emergency or alternate contact for their child? Our school system uses a system like others have mentioned. They normally use it only for weather closings and such. My sister's kids attend in another school system that uses the same automated calling system and I get calls for them because I am down as an emergency contact for my nephews.

 

[pozey]

Our school district does this. I get both pre-recorded phone calls and e-mails.

I'm sure the money saved from not sending out papers for everything is HUGE. I work for a fairly large company, and one of the things we discovered we spent the most money on...was paper.

PLUS...it's easier to get the information to the PARENTS. Kids will lose the paper...it gets accidently thrown away...whatever. It puts the information directly to the parent. Now...as long as they don't delete the messages...

 

[usnuzuloose]

Thanks for the reply. I don't mind the calls. To bad this didnt happen yrs ago. It would have been nice for the school to call me and say my son has not been in school for 4 days. Oh well. Have a great day everyone!

 

[pozey]

It would have been nice for the school to call me and say my son has not been in school for 4 days.

Oh, if one of my children have been counted absent or tardy, I get a pre-recorded message immediately saying "your child was recorded as absent".

It happened once when he WAS in school...a substitute forgot to mark him down as being there.

 

[usnuzuloose]

OP is it possible that someone has listed you as an emergency or alternate contact for their child? Our school system uses a system like others have mentioned. They normally use it only for weather closings and such. My sister's kids attend in another school system that uses the same automated calling system and I get calls for them because I am down as an emergency contact for my nephews.

No the calls did not have anyones name with the message. They are just random messages for the parents. Jo

 

[NotUrsula]

You might want to let the school know that you're getting them but are not a parent. The odds are that when the phone number data was entered, someone mis-keyed the number, which means that you are probably getting calls meant for someone else -- and that person is NOT getting them.

 

[minniebeth]

We're now getting almost all emails with attachments for letters, reminders, the newsletters, lunch menus etc. Most of all sports/activities sign ups. They are saving on paper, which is a huge expense. However, all the paper I ever see come home is all on recycled paper donated from business, so I wonder where their huge paper budget goes?
I'm on the fence about it, while I like the school being budget conscious, I don't always like having to shell out even more $ (private school) for every little piece of everything that needs to be printed (expense comes with ink/paper.) Sometimes our printer is not working and that is when it comes to be a problem, especially for homework (which is also assigned on-line and needed to be printed...)

 

[HelenePA]

Oh I wish we would go semi paperless here!! I have 3 kids in school 3 times the amount of paper. Such a waste! The only phone calls we get are when we are on delay, school is closed or there is an emergancy.

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

We get recorded calls for all meetings, events, even "Sub Night" at Jersey Mike's! I also get an email if I get a call. If one of mine is out sick, I will get a recorded phone call, maybe two, and an email. I don't mind, I can't imagine how many things I would miss if I relied on papers to get home and in my hands.

It is odd to send things out to people that don't have kids, although there are some grandparents that are PTA members, so how would they know who not to call?

 

[Mommy2cody]

I get an automated call from my sons school every night! It is always between 6 and 6:30. They call for everything from don’t forget we serve breakfast in the cafeteria every morning, to upcoming holidays and half days. It's really annoying because they call for EVERYTHING! They called me every day for a week to tell me about the english as a second language meeting when we only speak ENGLISH! Or when they call Monday night to remind us that Tuesday is a half day! Tuesday has been a half day since school started...i would hope we know that by now!

Sorry, just venting a little. I don’t mind the calls, but only call when it is important...not EVERY night! I would much rather have an email system!

 

[usnuzuloose]

Its ok if you want to vent go for it. And that is excessive I must admit. Jo

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

Oh I wish we would go semi paperless here!! I have 3 kids in school 3 times the amount of paper. Such a waste! The only phone calls we get are when we are on delay, school is closed or there is an emergancy.

Me too. I will have 4 in school next year, I dread it. PTO is trying to implement family packets but it's not catching on yet.
I saved all the papers from the kids last year and sorted it by kid and then a pile for flyers. 8 reams of paper per kid, I was shocked. And a lot of it was colored paper which is expensive!

I wish we had the phone call thing when we lost power at school. Only the gym had power so we kept them all there until the buses came back but we had to call every parent to find out where to send the kids. Thankfully the kids had their cell phones too so we just staged the kids to call the parents, then the adults went down the line to confirm travel arrangements for them.

 

[yoopermom]

In our district, the automated calling phone thingy was funded by special gvmt funds, I believe, from 9-11/antiterrorist monies (I may be slightly off, but I know it was from a special federal fund...)

Terri

 

[TheDisneyGirl02]

My parent's receive similars call from the school district. My father is a teacher in the district, but my twin and I graduated years ago so there aren't any school-aged children in the house. About two months ago, there was a boil advisory in their township. Did the township bother to notify all of the residents? Nope, but my parent's received a phone call about it from the school district. They were very thankful for the information especially since it was e-coli in the water.

Even though you may not have children in the district, it's a good way to get important information out to the masses.

 

[luvthatdisney]

I work in a school and part of my job is to send out automated messages. The system we use is called Connect-Ed. It is by no means free, our school pays about $900 per school year to use it. It is very easy to use. If a message needs to go out, I type it in the system, then I have to call in and record the message. I then select the recepients and the time to send it and I am done. It's funny when it calls me (we can make it call staff) and DH answers the phone and says "Oh, its just you" and hangs up.

It is nice as we can create groups. We have groups by bus, sports, grade, etc. So if we have a late bus, I can just call the parents of those kids. One bad thing is when parents have kids at multiple schools they can get several calls a night. And with so many people using cell phones, numbers change so frequently that we are not advised of a change and end up calling the old number and getting some really irrate people wondering why we called them.

 

[ilovejack02]

We have it in our district.

The only thing is I don't check phone messages lol, we never answer the house phone, our ringer is off due to hubby working nights and sleeping days.

I do check email though and the message pops up there .

I love it!