Part 4: Notification Of Crisis In today’s electronic world, people get their news from a variety of media. There’s the newspaper, radio, television and social media like Twitter and texts. In the event of a crisis at a school, local districts will use some or all of those sources to notify parents and students. “We have a lot of solutions in place and we use a lot of the modern technologies,” stated Warsaw Community Schools Chief Technology Officer Brad Hagg. “We’re currently using ‘We Are Closed Today’ to make notifications about weather delays and cancellations. That system also has the capacity to very quickly get information out to the media and our families that register with that service,” Hagg said. There’s a special message that can be sent out to everyone registered with the service. Caston School Corp. used that feature Jan. 22 to say it wasn’t closing that day so dress appropriately. “So that’s an example of that system being used,” Hagg said. WCS also is in the process currently of releasing a new calling system that works in conjunction with PowerSchool so parents will be able to make their notification preferences on that system, Hagg said. The high school is piloting that right now and it should be coming out in spring. “That system could also be used to contact parents of a certain demographic, certain school or any emergency contacts that are listed in the system really, to get information out,” he added. “We have our website, we have Twitter, we have Facebook. We have a presence on all of those systems, and we have now a director of communication services that will focus on getting the word out, the message out, and coordinating that,” Hagg continued. “I feel like we have a lot of resources here to make people aware and keep people in the communication stream should something happen.” Tippecanoe Valley has similar ways of notifying parents and families in the event of a crisis. “We have an emergency notification system that ... I can notify every staff member, every parent. From the minute I hit the send button to the minute you get the call, it’s probably 30 seconds. It’s almost immediately,” said Superintendent Brett Boggs. Tippecanoe Valley Middle School Assistant Principal Scott Backus said when an eighth-grade student and her father were killed over Christmas break, the system was used as a notification to students because school was out of session. “That’s a great communication tool, but we also would follow up with the radio stations and things of that nature,” Backus said.
