By KIM HILSENBECK
With some Hays CISD parents upset about the delay in notification about a potentially dangerous situation at Hays High School, district administrators say its ‘Alert Now’ system is effective.
A freshman boy was arrested by Hays County Sheriff’s after fellow students told campus teachers about a possible bomb threat.
Parents expressed frustration on the Hays Free Press Facebook page about how long it took to receive the alert from the district – most said it was 24 hours before they were notified. Several parents said they never received any information.
The district’s spokesman, Tim Savoy, confirmed an email went out to parents at 11:43 a.m. Thursday, following clearance from the Hays County Sheriff’s Department. Savoy said they could not notify parents until law enforcement authorities served warrants, retrieved evidence and interviewed all witnesses.
Savoy confirmed that 81 emails bounced back, meaning, they were blocked or the email was bad.
Savoy said the ‘Alert Now” system is the best way to share information with parents in an emergency. The program uses emails and phone calls to reach parents based on the emergency contact information provided when they registered their child for school.
“Our Alert Now system allows us to communicate with our 16,000 contacts nearly instantaneously and directly,” Savoy said.
But some parents of Hays High School students said they heard about the situation from their children, social media or the news media before they got an alert from the district.
Savoy asked that all parents of Hays High students contact the school and make sure the information on file is correct.
“We want to fix the problem for future emergency notifications,” he said.
According to Savoy, the district has no plans to revamp its communication process or add social media to the mix. He cited a 2011 national survey from the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) that ranked social media at the bottom of the list of preferred communication methods. Direct email was No. 1.
Hays CISD is planning a district-wide survey of parents later this spring. Savoy said that survey will offer parents the chance to share their preferred methods of communication.
