Girard SchoolReach
Telephone Communication System
by Marlene Brady
To enhance communications between parents and school, Girard CUSD #3 has instituted a telephone broadcast system that will enable school personnel to notify all households and parents by phone within minutes of an emergency or unplanned event that causes early dismissal, school cancellation, or late start. The service also may be used from time-to-time to communicate general announcements or reminders. This service is provided by SchoolReach, which specializes in school-to-parent communications. Girard CUSD #3 will continue to report school closings due to snow or
weather on WSMI, WMAY, and TV Channel 20 and will use this system as an overlay to the public announcements. When used, the service will simultaneously call all listed phone numbers in our parent contact list and will deliver a recorded message from Mrs. Brady or another school administrator. The service will deliver the message to both live answer and answering machines. No answers and busies will be automatically retried twice in 15 minute intervals after the initial call. NOTE: 1) This requires NO registration by the parent on the SchoolReach website. 2) All information and contact numbers are strictly secure and confidential and are only used for the purposes described herein. Here is some specific information you should know:
Caller ID � The Caller ID will display (217)627-2915 which is the district number for Girard CUSD#3.
Live Answers � There is a short pause at the beginning of the message, usually just a few seconds. Answer your phone as you normally would, say �Hello� and hold for the message to begin. Multiple �Hello�s� will delay the message. Inform all family members of this process who may answer your phone.
Answering Machines � The system will detect that your machine has answered and will play the recording to your machine. The maximum number of rings before hang up is 5. Make sure your machine answers after 4 rings, or you may miss the message.
Morning and Day Calls � In the event a cancellation decision is made the night before, or in the early morning hours, the broadcast message will be sent only to home / primary numbers. In the event a cancellation decision is made mid-day, the broadcast message will be sent to primary and secondary numbers. General announcements would be sent only to home / primary numbers.
Message Repeat � At the end of the message you will be prompted to �press one� to hear the message again. This is very effective when a child answers the phone and hands it to a parent, who can then �Repeat� the message in its entirety.
If you have any questions, please contact Ms. Brady, Mr. Horn, or Mrs. Raynor. SchoolReach, the service provider, uses the best available technology in the industry to detect the difference between
human answer and machine answer.
How detection works: The system detects and measures the voice energy when the phone is answered. The system measures this energy in combination with the background noise and line impairments. If the system determines that it is a �live� answer it will immediately start playing the message. If the system determines that it is a machine, it will wait for 3 full seconds of silence before playing the message with a maximum wait time of 20 seconds. If the system cannot make a determination it will default to answering machine thus requiring three seconds of silence for the message to play. In this case, you may hear a prompt to �Press any key to hear the message immediately.�
Some reasons for false detection:
� Loud background noise; television, radio, general noisy environment.
� Cordless phone that has static or other foreign noise
� Not saying hello or delaying saying hello
What can be done to remedy this?
� Do not say hello more than once, if the system detected your answer incorrectly all noise will reset the three second counter
� If, after you answer, the message does not immediately play � you can cover the mouthpiece of the phone to cut out all background noise. The message should then play after three seconds.
