Way cool! Do all colleges do this?

[phorsenuf]

My phone just rang and the caller ID was my sons' college. Of course my heart dropped. When I answered it was a recording saying it was a test of their emergency notification service.
I didn't realize they did that but I sure do like it!

Do most colleges do this? Of course it was probably told to us at orientation but I was overloaded then.

 

[chisnpeke]

Mine does!

 

[phorsenuf]

After I posted this I realized the college another one of my children goes to doesn't. At least I've never gotten a test call. I should check into that.

 

[mickeysgal]

Our DS's college sends out emergency email notification and a scripted phone call to our cell phones. It's already happened a few times - when there were multiple tornados in the area (how they were protecting the students) and twice when a female student was assaulted and they were looking for the assailant and wanted everyone to be on their guard. They also sent a notice when the person was caught.

I think this is a great idea to keep parents informed and not flooding the campus with calls during an emergency situation.

 

[nataliela]

yes- The school calls with an automated statement and sends a text message to my phone. My parents' do not get a phone call or anything- their number is not connected to the system. I'm not sure if parents have that option at my school.

It worked well for the hurricanes b/c everyone was scattered and the website was down. They let us know when classes resumed(from Gustav) and then for Ike, when they were cancelled

The only complaint is that sometimes they would send 3 texts with the same message- but its better to get 3 than none!!

 

[NMAmy]

I work at a college and everyone has an option to sign up for text notifications. It's come in really handy for days when we lost power unexpectedly in the summer and campus was closed. I'm used to checking for snow days but not just on a random sunny day in August so I was glad I got a notification.

 

[Abbie]

Ours doesn't. Neither did my older daughter's when she was in school. I'll have to ask my middle DD if they have some sort of notification system for the students at least. I think I remember hearing they would set something up after the Va. Tech incident.

When my older DD was in school, we would regularly get phone calls from them all right......but it was always the alumni office asking for donations! I really wanted to suggest they WAIT until she was actually an alumni before they started calling!

 

[WhateverLolaWants]

My school had a text messaging system.

 

[Brianne]

I don't have any in college yet, but our school district started doing that last year. Each school uses it for notification of upcoming events also, and the school district for meeting times, etc.

It's been really cool to have but since they really want to make sure parents get the message, they call every number they have on the emergency cards, which means DH gets calls at work and on his cell at the same time. They only have my cell number thankfully!

 

[fraggle551]

ours has one, but I think it blows. They tested it about 4 times last semester, each at 6 30 in the morning. Over Christmas vacation. Thanks a lot school.

Fast forward to two weeks ago...there was a gas leak at school, and classes were cancelled. No notification of any kind. No email (and we get over 40 e-mails a day about everything else under the sun from the school), no phone call, no text message. The head of public safety got a lovely letter from me asking them to explain that logic. Still waiting on a response for that

 

[Buckalew11]

My nephew's college has this. Helps my sister worry because otherwise she'd never know from him.

My town has it--we had three people break out of our "state of the art, can't be broken out of, no way, now how" jail. They gave updates regularly for sightings and anything suspicious. It kept me in the house, shaking in my boots.

 

[Trish Bessette]

My oldest DD who is a freshman in HIGH SCHOOL started it this year.

Funny thing, they tested it for the first time a few weeks ago. I got a call with the recording on:

My cell phone
My work phone
My DH cell phone
Our Home phone
My DD's cell phone
and a email here at work!!!!

Looks like I won't miss any special announcement.

 

[bgirl29]

All of our schools started that this year too. I have a high school, middle school and grade school student and recieved a test phone call from each school just before the end of the summer. Hmm they only called our home number though, I wonder if I should ask about that.

 

[mamacatnv]

My sons Univ. started the text system just this year. It was not automatic, DS had to registered his and my cell numbers. They also utilized an email system.

 

[Michelle67]

I don't have a child in college yet, but our school district has it. It is great. I don't have to get up early in the winter anymore to turn the television on and wait forever for the ticker to scroll to our school distict, and hope a commercial doesn't cut in right before it gets there. Instead, if the school is closed or on late start, I get a phone call. Love it. We also get calls for open house, etc. My home phone is on the first wave of calls, and my cell phone is on the second, so I get notified whether I'm at home or not. Our kids' school is also the pickup point for emergency airlift off the peninsula, so we've gotten calls telling us the kids would be late getting home due to an emergency pickup (they won't let the kids out of the building when the helicopter is coming in).

 

[KiminChicago]

Our school district just started up their emergency call system this year. Since I'm a substitute teacher for the district, I got two calls on my cell phone, my home phone and hubby's cell phone. I think after the shootings at NIU, most schools are going to start up this kind of calling system. It only makes sense, if we have the technology, we should use it.

 

[Val]

My DD20's college does, and the school district the 3 younger kids attend have SchoolReach.....the university I teach at (note: IN Illinois where we HAD a shooting last year) emails us but that is about it. We got a message after last year's events to "call 911 using campus phones, so they can be sure to have the emergency go through campus police rather than involving the city/country". Yah, right....like I am going to go down a hall trying to get into locked offices rather than pulling out my cell!

Things may be changing....we DID get an alert from the campus police this morning after an armed robbery of a student walking across campus on Monday at 7 PM.....yes, 7 PM! We have had a sudden increase in gang-wanna-be crime in the area, and I am afraid they have targeted our university. At least we got the email....it's a start. Now, if we can only get the police pulled from traffic/parking ticket duty (its upper admin that makes them- in defense of our boys in blue) and let them do REAL police work! Oh well.....

 

[js]

My phone just rang and the caller ID was my sons' college. Of course my heart dropped. When I answered it was a recording saying it was a test of their emergency notification service.
I didn't realize they did that but I sure do like it!

Do most colleges do this? Of course it was probably told to us at orientation but I was overloaded then.

I work in a college and we also do this but PLEASE make sure your son's cell phone number is also on record. They may have just your home phone so please make sure your son also received a message, if not, he needs to get it added/changed.

 

[disykat]

I like that my son's schools (jr high and high school) have them now, but I have mixed feelings about whether I'll want to be notified from their colleges.

Sure, if I'm hearing on the news about a shooting I'd love to be in the information loop. However, I don't want to know about reduced school hours due to snow or power outages!

I guess since I moved out of state to go to college at 17 and it was expected that I would write a letter once a week and call every three weeks or so, I'm expecting a pretty high level of independence from my kids when they go to college.

 

[freckles and boo]

My kids are a bit young for college, but our school district uses the Honeywell Instant Alert system. I got a call and an email yesterday because there was a gang member funeral at a local funeral home and the schools were on lockdown.

Usually they just remind us of lunch forms or snow days.