The Buzz: Wrong Number
Automated telephone, email, and text message alerts make mass communications easier than ever, but high-tech still can't completely eliminate human error.
April 2008
Counted Absent
In January, an automated phone system inadvertently made calls to parents in Medford, Mass., telling them their children had skipped school. Medford Public Schools later sent a second phone call to explain the mistake. “It’s an excellent system,” superintendent Roy Belson told the Boston Globe. “This was just a sequencing error.”
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Sent to Detention
The following month, a similar system was used to notify parents of 16 students at Palm Bay High School in Melbourne, Fla., that their children were required to report for weekend detention. However, parents of all 2,550 students received the phone calls. School officials explained that the error resulted from a user accidentally pushing the wrong button. Brevard Public Schools assistant superintendent Stephen Muzzy described it as “an unfortunate human mistake.”
