School phone alert plan tested

The Columbia Falls School District got a chance to test its automated emergency notification system Wednesday when dangerous road conditions forced the district to declare a snow day.

Shortly before 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, Columbia Falls’ AlertNow Notification Service dialed about 10,000 numbers to make sure students knew to stay home that day.

Unplowed roads in parts of the district meant several buses were unable to run their routes, according to the district office.

Columbia Falls Schools’ general rule is if more than seven buses, about a third of the district’s total fleet, aren’t able to reach students, the district declares a snow day, administrative assistant Marie Birky said.

Superintendent Michael Nicosia said that the AlertNow Service worked well in its first emergency closure situation.

The system allows Nicosia to dial all the families in his school district simultaneously to notify people of snow days, emergencies or other announcements. The 10,000 numbers on the district’s call list include home numbers, cell phones, work numbers and emergency contacts.

With more than one possible contact for most people in the district, Nicosia has a better chance of getting messages to families and teachers.

Of those 10,000 calls Wednesday, only five people had less-than-positive feedback about the notification. Those calls, Nicosia said, were from people who didn’t know why they received the call.

Some of those were numbers for friends listed as emergency contacts or for a parent’s previous employer.

For the most part, feedback about the system has been positive, Nicosia said.

“We did get some positive comments from people about the positive nature of the early phone call,” he said. “We got some compliments.”

The district didn’t get any complaints about messages that weren’t completed, although a summary from the service indicated that a few messages were interrupted, Nicosia said.

“At times, if there is background noise in the system, it will kind of stop the message,” he said.

If that happens, people should hit any button on their phones to restart the message from the beginning, he said.

In past years, the district relied on the County Superintendent of Schools Office to notify families of school closures.

Superintendent Marcia Sheffels gets closure information to local radio stations and posts it online at http://flathead.mt.gov/schools/closures.php.

Last fall, a handful of school districts in the valley purchased the AlertNow Service to improve their ability to communicate with parents. Somers was the first district to implement the system, followed by Smith Valley and Columbia Falls.

Smith Valley hasn’t yet used the service in an emergency situation such as a snow closure, secretary Charmaine Stappler said.

“We have used it for casual notes, mainly just as a test,” she said.

The school has used the system to remind parents of events at Smith Valley. Using the system in a non-emergency situation has allowed the school to work out glitches, such as making sure the numbers dialed are correct, Stappler said.

Even having correct numbers doesn’t ensure a glitch-free system, however.

The Billings School District’s automated phone dialing system failed to notify parents of bus problems Wednesday.

It took the system three tries to reach parents, according to the Billings Gazette. By the time the message got through, many students already had left for their bus stops and parents had already left for work.

Students waited outside in subzero temperatures for buses that were late or didn’t show. The cold weather had made it impossible to start some buses and caused others to stall in mid-route. It was minus 16 with a wind chill of 41 below zero in Billings shortly before 6 a.m., according to the National Weather Service.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com