I have a little one in my town’s school system and as part of him being in school, we signed up pretty much every method of contact we have with the school’s “One Call Now” system. This is, in theory, a system that would be used to provide emergency and crucial information to parents. For example, once they sent out a message about a sex offender seen in the vicinity of one of the schools. That went to our house phone, both cell phones, and a couple of email adddresses. Another time I think it was used to wake us up at quarter to 6 or so via phones (plural) to let us know about inclement weather closings. This is fine, and a perfectly reasonable use of an emergency type system. I was annoyed to be woken up ahead of the alarm, but it wasn’t an unreasonable call.
But the superintendent of schools seems to also like to use the system for other things, albeit not always using both phone and email. For example, before Christmas we got a phone call on the house phone and both cells wishing us a happy holiday and letting us know there are seats open on the school buildings committee. Today I received an email letting me know that the high school team is playing some hockey game at the local stadium. This, to me, isn’t an appropriate use.
I called the education office and I asked if there was a way to get on an emergency message only list vs. the emergency and oh all this other junk list. There’s one list, you’re either on or off it, but I get the feeling the poor woman I talked to has fielded these calls before.
So what do I do here? Do I remove my contact information from the list and miss out on the “there’s a knife wielding crazy in your son’s pre-school classroom” messages, or just leave it be and create a special filter for the superintendent’s drivel?
I’m thinking it might be worth taking up with the town selectmen at some point because it’s pretty obviously a misuse of a valuable system. Or am I being too sensitive?
