Northville Schools Discontinue Automated Calls for Snow Days

Northville's automated call-out system is supposed to notify parents of school closings, but lately its been causing more headaches than its worth.

According to an email from Northville Public Schools Superintendent Mary Kay Gallagher, the district will no longer be using the Edu-Link telephone system for early morning phone calls to notify parents of school closings due to inclement weather.

"Please accept my sincere apology for the disruption that many families experienced today, ranging from repeated messages, repeated blank messages, gaps between repeated calls and/or no call at all - all at a time when most people prefer to be sound asleep," Gallagher said in the email Wednesday.

When working correctly, the Edu-Link systems is supposed to call all student households within a 15-30 minute window, starting at 5:30 a.m. for the high school and Cooke School and starting at 6:15 a.m. for all other schools.

Gallagher had sent out an email to the district on Tuesday, stating that although the district has had issues with the system before, Edu-Link assured her that the software issues had been corrected.

However, the district again experienced problems with the phone calls when it was used for Wednesday's snow day.

Gallagher said that the district will continue to notify parents of snow days using its email listserv, on the district's website, and via TV, radio and other media.

"We will also continue to utilize the Edu-Link system for school-based calls during the regular school day as appropriate to communicate messages that may be of importance to families who may not monitor e-mail communications as closely," Gallagher said.

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