Schools test communication tool

During the Christmas season, Alleghany County Schools tried out a new phone system that allows a message to be recorded and sent to a large number of staff members, parents and guardians simultaneously. Superintendent Jeff Cox explained the Connect Ed system during the Jan. 3 meeting of the Alleghany County Board of Education.

"This is a new tool we have whereby different folks can record messages and send (them) out to staff or students. We did a test- drive of the system and sent a Christmas message to the staff," he said of the Web-based tool. "We had 371 staff members identified by phone numbers...we sent out 273 phone calls and 238 of those were successfully delivered."

Cox noted the 87 percent success rate was the result of the phone either being answered or an answering machine being reached. In a phone interview Monday, Cox stated through the use of the Student Information Management System (SIMS)—which includes information about students, including parents' home, cell and work phone numbers—the parents of the 1,600 county students who reside in about 1,100 homes, were also sent a message during the Christmas break.

Cox, who commented he learned about the system through other superintendents, said the Connect Ed system "is being used by a number of school systems across the state." In the case of Alleghany County, the cost of the Connect Ed system comes from the central office's operating expenses.

"The system has two main uses," Cox said in a phone interview Monday. The first is to send "general information to improve communication with parents." A second use is to emergencies, such as to alert parents to an early dismissal due to snowfall.

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