January 8, 2008

Parents and Guardians of Bishop Brady Students:

Providing information concerning your sons and daughters involving school situations or emergencies is a high priority for Bishop Brady.  In an effort to enhance the communication process, we have contracted to use the ALERTNOW Notification Service.  ALERTNOW will allow the school to quickly and effectively notify you by telephone of incidents such as school delays, cancellations, or emergencies.  We will continue to use our existing communications such as Edline, emails, and WMUR; however, contacting you immediately by phone can improve the security necessary for you and your children.

The success of the ALERTNOW service is dependent upon having the most accurate contact information for each student at Brady.  We have reviewed our data base to ensure that we have current phone numbers by which we can contact you.  We have loaded our information into the ALERTNOW database and we will be conducting a test of the service on Friday, January 11, 2008.  Please understand the test is vital to us to check the accuracy of our database, understand our requirements to use the service, and get feedback from you as to how well you believe the service works.

The notification process has two levels of communication - standard and emergency.  A standard notification makes a phone call to the primary contact phone number for a student.  Only the primary number will be called and a recorded message will be played regarding the situation when the phone is answered.  An emergency notification will make a phone call to every contact number listed for a student; these calls will be made in an extreme situation when contact is of great importance.  When you receive a phone call these are a few items to note:

• If a standard notification is made, your Caller ID will display Bishop Brady's main phone number.
• If an emergency notification is made, your Caller ID will display 411.
• ALERTNOW will leave the recorded school message on an answering machine or a voicemail.
• If the ALERTNOW message cuts-off or stops playing, press any key 1-9 and the message will replay.
• ALERTNOW messages received by cell phones may experience errors due to reception difficulties.

We are very excited to incorporate ALERTNOW as a tool to improve parent-school communications.  We hope to deliver real time information and awareness to significant events occurring at Bishop Brady.  Thank you for your cooperation, and if you have any questions, contact data changes, or problems with the service please do not hesitate to contact the school.