Enid Public Schools recently adopted SchoolReach, a telephone broadcasting service, to help keep our parents better informed about school happenings. The program allows us to contact thousands of households within a short amount of time. While this system can be used to contact parents during emergency situations, its primary use will be for regular announcements - school picture days, parent-teacher conferences, family nights and other upcoming events.

This is a very important step for our district and the families that we serve. After all, research indicates that parent involvement is one of the most important – if not the most important – indicator of student success. One of the first steps of parent involvement, of course, is for the principal and teachers to let parents know what is happening at school.

Enid Public Schools will continue to report school closings due to snow or weather on local radio and Oklahoma City television stations and will use this system as an overlay to the public announcements.

When used, SchoolReach simultaneously calls all phone numbers on our parent contact list and delivers a recorded message from the school principal or another school administrator. The service delivers the message to both live answer and answering machines. No-answers and busies are automatically retried twice in 15 minute intervals after the initial call. It does not call duplicate numbers, so parents will not get multiple phone calls if they have children on the same calling list.

This service requires no registration by the parent on the SchoolReach website. All information and contact numbers are strictly secure and confidential and are used only for the purposes described within the letter that has been sent home with parents.

For this service and for many other reasons, it is extremely important that each child’s school has the most up-to-date contact information for his/her family. If parents have not contacted the school about a changed or new telephone number, please do so immediately. We are only able to call the numbers that we have been given.

For the 2007-08 school year, EPS has implemented a $2 per child fee to assist with the cost of the SchoolReach subscription.

Here is specific information parents should know to help make the phone calls more successful:

Caller ID
Although we are still working out a few problems, the Caller ID soon will display the school’s main number. A phone call from the district office will display 580-234-5270, which is the main number for the Board of Education. If you call the number, it will simply place a phone call to the school; it will not repeat the message.

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 “Hellos” will delay the message. Inform all family members who may answer your phone of this process.

Answering Machines
The system will detect that your machine has answered and will play the recording to your machine. The maximum number of rings before hang up is 5. Make sure your machine answers after 4 rings or you may miss the message.

Morning & Day Calls
In the event a cancellation decision is made the night before, or in the early morning hours, the broadcast message will be sent only to home phone numbers. In the event a cancellation decision is made mid-day, the broadcast message will be sent to home, work and cellular numbers. (Cell phone calls and emails will be available in the near future.) General announcements will be sent only to home numbers.

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.

For more information about School Reach, please call Amber Fitzgerald at 234-5270.