I don't think it is as effective as a phone call because by its very nature you don't know when someone reads it. Were there to be an emergency at a school...I would want to make the phone calls to ensure that parent contact via telephone was attempted. Some of the folks with email capability don't check them but once a day or once every 2 or 3. If a child was sick, you wouldn't effectively be able to use email to contact them immediately for pick up.
A phone tree that breaks the 755 phone calls into small bites for myriad folks would be the most valuable tool in my mind.
We do have "Schools Out" emails that notify us of changes in school routine...but sometimes that dumps into the wrong "bin" and folks don't see it (i.e. bulk mail).
Hi There,
This is my first post. We are here in Colorado. I'm sure many of you have heard of the school shooting in Bailey Colorado. Columbine is about 15mins from our Elm School.
If you have the PTO software program for your school, than you are probably familiar with its capability for emailing your registered parents.
What is your opinion if this program is used for contacting parents for emergency situation? We would be able to reach many parents via email quickly rather than trying to call 755 parents by cell phones to tell them that there is an emergency and where they need to go to pick up their kids?
curretnly we have 92 out of 755 parents registered onto our site. asking parents to register for emergency purposes may have parents worried about Privacy policy and having their info and their children info on the website.
Is anyone out there thinking of using the email capability of this software for emergency communication purposes?
Thanks,
Diem Sellers
ARES PTCO President
Centennial, Colorado
