Mounds View schools debut faster system to reach parents

The high-speed telephone system is designed to call every home, or a specific group, within minutes.

By Norman Draper, Star Tribune

Last update: October 13, 2007 - 11:36 PM

Backpack mail and postal deliveries might soon go the way of the slide rule and the McGuffey's Reader if a new form of high-speed telephone communication catches on in Mounds View schools this year.

The district is debuting a system it calls "Mounds View Messaging," which is designed to allow district or individual school officials to contact parents within minutes. The computerized system plugs into any set of parent phone numbers the district collects from students at the beginning of the school year. That means that if Mounds View Superintendent Dan Hoverman calls off school because of a snowstorm, that alert will go out to all the parents in the district, saving them the task of watching TV or listening to the radio for school-closing information. The system can also target parents of particular groups of kids, such as third-grade boys at a specific elementary school, for example.

"The days of our families turning on the TV news to find out about school cancellations are essentially going to be over," said Colin Sokolowski, district director of public relations. "This new system will allow us to call every family within about 20 minutes of a decision."

Sokolowski said the system will eventually also allow school and district officials to call parents to make run-of-the-mill announcements, report balances in student lunch accounts, notify parents of school bus accidents and delays and keep parents up-to-date on any school emergencies.

The service, provided by a Utah-based company, ParentLink, costs the district between $37,000 to $45,000 a year to run, and is still in the testing stage. Steve Ostler, director of marketing for ParentLink, said as many as one-quarter of the nation's school districts use some kind of speedy phone notification technology offered by the company or one of its competitors. ParentLink itself has hundreds of school district customers nationwide, including several in Minnesota, he said.

Currently, the Mounds View district notifies parents of important announcements by e-mail or regular mail.

Sokolowski said one important feature of the new system is that it will allow parents to get the news of an emergency situation quickly, and from an authoritative source.

"We could evacuate a high school, and the kids will be walking out the door on their cell phones telling their moms and dads what's going on," Sokolowski said. "Now, we can trump those student phone calls."

Districts such as Brooklyn Center and Minnetonka already have communications systems similar to Mounds View's up and running. Brooklyn Center's system has been in place since last year, said superintendent Keith Lester, and was put to emergency use last spring when parents had to be notified that the school buses would be late because of a tornado threat.

Norman Draper • 612-673-4547

Norman Draper • ndraper@startribune.com

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