Automated Dialing

The Kyrene School District Governing Board approved Jan. 8 a contract for an Edulink Systems Phone Dialer Communication System to be installed throughout the district early this year.

The system, which Kyrene initially began looking at as an option last June, is designed to work directly with the district’s Genesis Student Information System to provide easy parent contact regarding attendance, emergencies and other notifications.

Today, when a student is absent from school, an employee phones all numbers listed for that student’s parents, including work, cell and home numbers, to confirm the absence.

“That’s a lot of numbers to call,” Kyrene director of technology Mark Share said. “This system will call every number listed in the Genesis until it reaches a person and then it will stop. Parents can then return the call to the appropriate office.”

Additionally, the system can call to remind parents of major events, such as the first day of school, AIMS testing, picture day and field trips. It can call all parents, or just a subset thereof, at a school or district depending on the reason for the call.

The benefit district officials are most excited about comes from a student safety standpoint. The system’s ability to make up to 35,000 phone calls per hour through Edulink’s call operations center, which utilizes its automated systems through a number of different telephone providers, makes emergency contact fast and easy.

For example, during a school lockdown parents can receive information as quickly as it is sent out. The system will immediately call all phone numbers listed for a student to ensure that the message gets through, as opposed to cycling through numbers like the attendance procedure.

The system can also integrate with food services, community education and other student data bases, as well as communicate with staff.

The only downfall of the new system, Share said, is the danger that, at some point, parents will stop paying attention to the calls if there are too many of them and miss an emergency notification. A committee will thus be working to develop appropriate procedures for the use of the system.

“The system will allow us to open further lines of communication with the public,” Share said. “But it is not the only one.”

As to when parents can expect the system to be put into use, Share said it will take a number of weeks.

The initial cost of implementing the system is $42,920, which evens out to about $2.25 per student, plus tax, with an annual average renewal of $41,625 per year. The cost will be budgeted from maintenance and operations.

Corinne Frayer can be reached at (480) 898-7917 or cfrayer@aztrib.com.