Family Notification System
SchoolReach Parent Notification System
In an effort to improve communications between families and our school, in November of 2007 we instituted a telephone broadcast system that enables 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, and 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.
If you are missing our automated phone messages, here are SchoolReach's suggestions:
- If you are experiencing partial messages being left on your answering machine, there is most likely a 'pause' in your greeting which is triggering the system to deliver the message early. Make sure your greeting is clean and precise to remedy this issue.
- If you are not receiving messages on your answering machine, be sure that it is set to answer after FOUR rings or less.
- If you answer your phone but get no message or only the introduction, the system expects you to say 'hello' (or some short greeting) then wait for the message. Also, a 'ringback' tone (song) on your cellphone will confuse the message delivery system.
If you are missing our automated email messages, see the following callout box.
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 within 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.
cclcs@cclighthouseschool.org AND smtp01.groupcast.com AND smtp02.groupcast.com
It's best if you 'whitelist' these addresses by adding them to a 'safe sender' list, but putting them into your address book may work (different email programs / services handle this differently).
Depending upon your email setup, you may have two spam folders. This may be the case if you have a web-based email account (Yahoo or Gmail, for example) that you access via a 'POP' email client like Outlook Express, Eudora, Mail, Thunderbird, etc (not via a website with a web browser). If this sounds like your setup, you may need to check the spam / junk mail folder on the website, in addition to such a folder on your own computer.
You can always access Notes to Home from the 'For Families' page of our website.
We hope you will find this 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 the office.