New Service Enhances School-To-Parent Communication

By Martha Coville

Superintendent Janet Robinson says that the district’s new Connect-Ed service is up and running. She said that the district used the service for the first time after shortly after winter vacation, to remind parents of Middle Gate School students about changes made to their children’s bus routes.

Former Interim Superintendent Thomas Jokubaitis had recommended that the district purchase the Connect-Ed telephone service at a Board of Education meeting in November. He said that it would enable administrators to contact every single parent in the school district within minutes. The days of phone trees are long gone for Newtown; now, when Superintendent Robinson wants to call parents, she records a message and pushes a single button.

Dr Robinson said, “By my making one recorded message, we can contact 5,800 parents literally in the blink of an eye. It’s the simplicity and the speed” that recommend the system.

Dr Robinson also said the Connect-Ed system is very flexible. “The nice part is that you can always create subsets,” she said. The recent changes to the Middle Gate bus routes are a good example of a subset. The number of students affected by the changes was not large, because only a few bus schedules changed. Connect-Ed made it easy for administrators to send messages only to the parents of effected students. In the future, Dr Robinson said, a band teacher might use the system to notify his students about a rescheduled practice. Connect-Ed will also be convenient for coaches and athletic teams. “I think it’s going to be used the most for specific subsets.”

Dr Robinson said the system had not yet been used to announce a snow day, but that it could be used for that purpose in the future. Since families juggle home phone numbers with work numbers and cellphones, she said, “We’re still collecting information from parents about what’s the best number to reach them at.”

Connect-Ed services are provided by the NTI Group Inc. Former Superintendent Jokubaitis said last November that he estimated that the cost of the program for the remainder of the school year, including the one time start-up costs, would be about $13,200. Starting next year, the service will cost $3.25 per student annually.