Early Morning Phone Calls from Seattle Public Schools?
Did anyone else get yanked out of bed this morning with an early morning phone call from the Seattle Public Schools headquarters?
My home phone rang at 5:50 am. My husband didn't get to it in time, and no message was left, so I dialed *69 and was surprised to find out it was the school district office calling. Then ten minutes later my cell phone rang. This time, the School District left a message announcing the 2-hour delay because of icy roads.
I don't remember signing up for home phone calls in case of school delays, but I'm certainly going to call the district to ask that it not happen again. I usually get up around 5:30 or 6 am for work anyhow, but my husband and kids are sleeping and I don't want a phone call waking them up to tell them that they can sleep in longer!
Okay...that's really weird...I just got another call from the district on my home phone (this time at 6:30 am) announcing the delay. Is this a case of auto-dialing software gone crazy?
My home phone rang at 5:50 am. My husband didn't get to it in time, and no message was left, so I dialed *69 and was surprised to find out it was the school district office calling. Then ten minutes later my cell phone rang. This time, the School District left a message announcing the 2-hour delay because of icy roads.
I don't remember signing up for home phone calls in case of school delays, but I'm certainly going to call the district to ask that it not happen again. I usually get up around 5:30 or 6 am for work anyhow, but my husband and kids are sleeping and I don't want a phone call waking them up to tell them that they can sleep in longer!
Okay...that's really weird...I just got another call from the district on my home phone (this time at 6:30 am) announcing the delay. Is this a case of auto-dialing software gone crazy?
Comments
Helen Schinske
you'd like your school district to get that kind of thing right.
I didn't mind the call at all, and I think it shows one more way that the district is not only communicating with parents, but being responsive to what we have asked for.
Families who don't have computers (and there are many who don't) can't get through to the district or their schools until they open at 9A. Transportation phone lines clog up early and you can't get through. For the past couple of years many parents complained about the lack of communication during snow closures.
Now SPS is communicating with us, and people are still complaining?????
THANKS SPS FOR THE COMMUNICATION!!!!! Even if it was a bit inconvenient.
So I wasn't surprised at all to get an early morning call.
We didn't catch it in time, but as soon as my husband saw SPS on the caller ID, I knew I would get to sleep for at least an extra hour.
I agree with Adhoc--it's not fun getting an early AM call, but I appreciate the district's effort to get out delay information via multiple channels.
I was getting up to check the web site for school delays/closures and was happy to get the call.
People who don't want phone calls have the option to silence their phones until they're ready to interact with their world.
I do agree though, that the district ought to communicate the mechanism through which grumpy people can "opt out" so they can get the beauty sleep they so obviously need.
Anticipating a call, we didn't have any phones in positions to wake us up.
I doubt it would be easy to opt out, since there would have to be all sorts of contingencies for when to override the opting out. What about situations that are not obvious like weather? What if your school was closed due to a bad boiler or something where you wouldn't think to check on-line?
They are trying to communicate and need to work out the bugs. Beth only has elementary school kids, so 5:30 probably felt a lot early for her than it would for me. Perhaps they should get a call later? Or parents could determine what time to call, so it's staggered. (Since I know some elementary school kids have before school care and would need early call.)
Please consider trying to work the bugs out and maintain communication instead of just pushing to opt out.
My understanding is that the District waits until 5:00 AM to decide because they don't want to close un-necessarily, as it's a) disruptive and b) has to be made up (if it's over, I think, two days per year).
I'm glad they wait; there are some days/evenings when you don't know what the morning will bring. I recall a year or two ago when they cloed and the morning warmed up quickly, leading some to chastise the district for being too quick to make a decision...
I agree with Scotttom-if you can't handle early calls, shut off the phone. And what kind of phone systems do you people have that the entire house wakes up when the phone rings? My kids never had phones in their rooms. Where are the phones ringing??
I use my cell for the emergency number. It is also my alarm, so when I got the call, I shut off the alarm at the same time and went back to sleep for 2 hours. It saved our whole family having to get up early when we didn't have to.
And for heavens sake, can we stop the judging all around on this topic?
When the phone rang, I thought someone had died or something else awful had happened. No one ever calls our house that early in the morning for any other reason. That's why I didn't like it.
I wasn't angry with the district. I'm glad they are trying to communicate with families in multiple ways. But I absolutely want a way to "opt out."
What works well for some families may not work well for others.
If a phone is so loud it wakes up the entire family from one end of the house to the other, the ringer needs to be turned off at night-otherwise every wrong number or random robo call will disturb everyone-seems pretty obvious to me.
I know about emergency middle of the night calls-I have a teenager away at school and a son who used to be in the armed forces. I know the heart-pounding that comes with such a call. I still think the district is doing a good thing here.
And I'm with Adhoc-why devote a whole thread to complaining about the calls and then get annoyed with criticism?
I object to the judgmental comments I was hearing in this thread, whether directed at me or others.
Statements like "the district ought to communicate the mechanism through which grumpy people can "opt out" so they can get the beauty sleep they so obviously need" and "And what kind of phone systems do you people have that the entire house wakes up when the phone rings? My kids never had phones in their rooms. Where are the phones ringing??" don't seem constructive or helpful in any way.
I particular object to the phrase "you people" which is almost always used to denigrate or judge a group of people who are seen to differ in some way.
i wonder if they post them on the website? and if they don't, could they? you would need to know your route number, probably - but if you still have your letter from the transportation dept it would be possible.
Dunno if there are legal objections to posting school bus routes online -- there may be.
Helen Schinske
I was not happy to get the call at 5:45 (and again at 6:00) this morning. Since I don't normally get calls at that hour, I jumped out of bed expecting it to be a real emergency. For those saying to turn off the phone, you obviously haven't received an emergency call waking you from your sleep. I have.
I would also like a way to opt out of these calls. Seems to me in this day and age that we would have the technology available to handle that.
I contacted the SPS Office of Public Affairs to voice my opinion. I urge others to do the same.
I also thought it was funny to read all these comments. Beth - may I buy you a cordless phone for the holidays?
I also wonder, could they take the $ invested in calling every family in the district and use it to change the assignment plan software this year? Seems that if they can make upwards of 20,000 phone calls in one morning, they can figure out how to assign 45,000 students. in the next two months.
Helen Schinske
Is there a 2 hour delay?
Sure, it woke me up out of a deep sleep, and I initially feared that something terrible had happened. But even so, I was glad to have been notified early enough that I could adjust my plans for the morning. (In this case, adjusting my plans meant turning off my alarm and catching a welcome extra hour of sleep! But others might have needed the early notification so they could make alternate before-school care or work arrangements.)
I'm pleased that the School District has an effective way to contact all families who have a phone. Lots of families at my kid's school don't have computers, and there are quite a few who don't have TVs either by choice, or because they can't afford cable and can't get decent reception without it.
The phone calls may be a nuisance, but the alternative is not getting important news out to all families of public school kids in a timely manner.
to turn on the radio, tv or computer.
Yes, already well-functioning families always got the info about school closures in whatever way they needed. But a lot of Seattle's kids are in families who are very new to this country, or are chaotic or stressed to the limit. They're the ones whose families were most likely not to have gotten notified in time for a safe option to be found for the kids. I think of the robocalls as an annoying but necessary way to get important messages out to all families. The district just put up some FAQs about the system on the site, and they say they're still refining it.
Eric B, the robocall system is already available to individual schools. My kid's school has used it a couple of times recently to remind parents of important meetings and events. It's been the more effective by far than anything else we've tried for getting the word out.
This is one of the things I like about our "new" Seattle Public Schools administration. They actually heard customer feedback, made some changes, and posted a story about it.
The district is trying to be responsive.
A couple of years ago people complained because the district canceled school too early, and the weather they expected never came. They listened and now they wait until midnight to close schools.
A couple of years ago families complained because of the lack of communication during inclement weather. Now they call us to make sure we are notified.
Now some families are saying the early morning calls are disturbing, and they are making public a way to remove your number from the system.
I have to say that I am so proud of the way the district is being responsive to the public. It is what we have been asking for for years.
Post-Katrina and all that, all the talk is emergency preparedness and our principal told us that was one big reason for the new system -- to contact parents in cases of earthquake, etc. Now that's a bit odd perhaps because the last thing you want to do in an earthquake is tie up phone lines, but whatever, at least they are thinking ahead and anything this big is going to have bugs to work out.
Brian, I am not an early bird by choice! If high school started at a sane hour, there's no way I'd be up at 6 am. Don't jump to conclusions.
Can we all start bitching about no school today, when it was 34 degrees outside at 6 am when I woke up and steadily climbing since then? Hasn't even started raining yet. Well, I can't moan too much, because the weather is fickle, who could'a known!