School Messenger
amwadmin
June 25, 2018
CCPS uses the SchoolMessenger notification system. This app allows us to provide timely communication to parents and staff regarding emergencies or school-related cancellations. The system works by delivering a pre-recorded telephone message to phone numbers specified by the parents and staff members.
SchoolMessenger is free to use. The app is available on Android Google Play and the Apple iOS app store. If you prefer to use the website instead of the mobile app, you may access SchoolMessenger here.
Please note: Student families are automatically enrolled in the system using phone numbers provided to the child’s school. Staff are automatically enrolled at the time of employment.
Frequently Asked Questions
While the goal is to contact every person at the number specified, technical problems may prohibit the successful delivery of messages in every case. Specifically, problems with phone lines or cellular connection quality, ambient noise, telephone privacy services, and some outgoing voicemail or answering machine messages may inhibit message delivery.
The following questions and answers address some of the most common concerns with the system:
How do I log in for the first time and how do I change or add to numbers being called?
Please visit the SchoolMessenger App Guide on their website for help. If you are unable to find what you need there, please contact your child's school office.
When an emergency affects some of the school population, but not all of it, only the people affected will be notified. For example, if an elementary school is closed due to a power failure, only the parents and staff members in that school will be notified. This allows us to ensure that we're not needlessly notifying parents of situations that do not affect them.
At any time during the message, you can restart the message by pressing your "*" key on your phone.
SchoolMessenger will make up to four attempts to reach you.
If the answering machine greeting is sporadic with various periods of silence or does not start playing within three seconds, the system may read this as a live person and begin playing the message before the machine has started recording.
Alternately, if the answering machine is set to record for a specific amount of time (e.g., 30 seconds) and the SchoolMessenger message runs longer than that, this will also result in message cut-off. The recommended solution is to have parents set their machines to record for a longer period.
The system will ring a line up to six times. If your answering machine is set to pick up on seven or more rings, the message may not be delivered to your machine. Therefore, we encourage you to set your machine to six rings or fewer. Another possibility is that there is a break or a substantial silence in your machine’s outgoing message, causing the SchoolMessenger message to play prior to the machine actually recording. Please make sure that the greeting is seamless to facilitate successful message delivery.
SchoolMessenger cannot navigate phone menus and is unable to dial extensions.
