LCPS Searches for Fix to Emergency Call System

By Leah Carliner

Friday, June 27, 2008

When Robert Drozd got a phone call on June 4 saying that his child was being held at school because of inclement weather, he knew something wasn't right.

Drozd's 8-year-old was already home.

"We were happy to have the call, but we laughed about it," Drozd said about the automated message that came nearly an hour and a half after his child is usually dismissed from school.

Earlier this year the Loudoun County Public School system began using Connect-Ed, a communication mechanism that sends alerts to phones and emails. LCPS pays $147,000 a year for the message plan that Wayde Byard, the public information officer, described as "a good system."

Though Connect-Ed has been in place all school year, it has only been used for non-emergency alerts like parent meetings and principal updates. June 4's storm -- which knocked out power lines, downed trees and killed a person in Annandale -- was the first time LCPS tested the system in an emergency situation.

At the school board meeting following the storm, the health, safety and wellness committee was assigned to review LCPS's storm response procedure. They will present their findings at a meeting that will be scheduled sometime after July 1.

John Stevens, the school board vice chairman, lead the motion for a review of the schools' responses.

"I think people were caught in a very unexpected situation," Stevens said. He noted the fact that several students were already on buses when the decision was made to withhold dismissal from the elementary schools.

But Byard said he was pleased with the way the information was distributed. "For the first time out, that was a pretty good trial run," he said.

Connect-Ed distributed 64,462 phone calls that day, warning parents of late dismissals and delayed buses, and 80 percent received the message when it was sent. Many messages, however, were not sent on time because of a brief power outage at the administration building.

Drozd said he understands that technical difficulties are sometimes unavoidable, but more should have been done to prepare for the storm when the initial weather warnings were announced.

"I've lived in a lot of places that have tornadoes … we know that seconds and minutes matter," he said.

At 2:35 p.m. Lisa Glasgow was expecting her children to be dismissed from Little River Elementary, but instead she was greeted by a school official who told her that the children were being kept inside.

"They had some challenges to meet," Glasgow said about the awkward timing of the storm, yet the fact that she didn't get her first phone alert until 3:05 p.m. was "inappropriate."

Drozd, Glasgow and a handful of other parents sent emails to the school board chairman, according to documents obtained by LoudounExtra.com, to notify the county of the alert failures.

Local bloggers, including MommyLife.net and Municipalist.com, solicited community responses on their Web sites. Many responded with negative experiences that included delayed and repetitive messages. Some had positive feedback and applauded the LCPS alert system for the quick information and the safety of their children.

Byard said his office has already taken steps to avoid a similar situation by prerecording messages in Spanish and English and buying an uninterrupted power source to allow the computer to run, even in the face of an outage.

Tagged: school board, schools, weather

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