November 15, 2007

Dear CCLCS Parent,

In an effort to improve communications between families and our school, we are instituting a telephone broadcast system that will enable CCLCS personnel to contact all families by phone within minutes of an unplanned event or emergency that causes early dismissal, school cancellation or a late start. We can also use the service to communicate general announcements or reminders. We can also send messages to your email address.

This service is provided by SchoolReach, which specializes in school-to-parent communications. When used, the service will simultaneously call all listed phone numbers in our parent contact list and will deliver a recorded message from a CCLCS administrator. The service will deliver the message to both live answer and answering machines or voicemail. No answers and busy phones will be automatically retried twice in 15-minute intervals after the first call. Please note: all information and contact numbers are strictly secure and confidential.

Here is some specific information you need to know:

Caller ID: The Call ID will display 508.240.3429, a phone number at CCLCS.

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, and hold for the message to begin. (Please don’t hang up during the silence!) Multiple “hellos” will delay the message. Inform all family members who may answer the phone of this process.

Answering machines/voicemail:The system will detect that your machine/voicemail has answered and will play the recording. The maximum number of rings before hang up is 5. Please make sure your machine/voicemail answers after 4 rings or you may miss the message.

Morning and 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 is made mid-day, the broadcast message will be sent to both home and cell 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 entire message.

We plan to test this new service with a broadcast phone message on Sunday evening, November 18. If you do not receive the message, please call us on Monday, November 19.

We hope you will find this new service a helpful and efficient way to receive important updates from school. If you have any questions or concerns about it, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Kathy McNamara

Executive Director