Jasper County Schools
The Alert Now Rapid Communication Service is a program that allows the District to notify parents, students, and staff of emergency or weather related situations as well as other items of interest. This has been an outstanding addition to the District. We have received a number of positive comments about the early notification for weather related cancellations since we began using the system in 2008. There have been a few questions about the system that can be addressed by reviewing the following points:
• The message will come to any and all phone numbers you have listed on your contact or emergency information for your child(ren). In other words, the phone message could come to your home phone and/or cell phone. If you have not given cell phones, emergency numbers, or alternate phone numbers to the schools, please do so if you wish to receive calls to those numbers.
• If you do not answer, and have an answering machine, it will leave the message. If the entire message does not record, you may need to increase the allowed recording time on your machine. However, for most messages from the District, that should not be a concern.
• The message will most likely be a pre-recorded voice message from the Superintendent or other Administrator.
• When you receive the call, the school or District's main number will display on your caller ID (618-783-8459-District Office, for example).
• If you answer your phone when the call comes to you, the message could "cut off" a few seconds into the message. That could be due to any background noise causing the answering machine detection software to engage. PLEASE NOTE: All you need to do is press any number key on your phone and the message will replay from the beginning without interruption.
• If we have an emergency call/message, your caller ID will display 411. We do not plan to use that except for emergencies. School closings due to weather and most other announcements will not be considered an emergency.
Please be sure that the school has the correct and most current contact information.
