By using an automated phone dialer, parents and guardians would receive a standard message with information from the district about whatever incident was occurring.
Messages would be sent out over 24 phone lines shared by all 20 schools in the district. Each message would be sent in the language spoken by the majority of the household, as indicated in the district's files.
The system, which Vonk has been researching for several months, will also be used daily to alert parents to absences of their children.
High school and middle schools in the district typically have one to four phone lines that use automated dialing to alert parents to partial or whole-day absences. Elementary schools, however, rely on teachers to notify parents of prolonged, unexcused absences.
"[The new system] will read the information and take all the students that were absent and automatically dial them," Vonk said.
As of the beginning of the 2006-07 school year, teachers at the high school and middle school levels have been logging absences by computer.
The mass communication system would take those absences and make the calls to parents. Staff in the attendance office would not have to input the absences and the phone numbers themselves.
"There's an automated phone message that goes out when any student is absent for one period or one day," said Linda Bitto, senior attendance technician at Burbank High School.
The attendance office at Burbank High handles anywhere between 250 to 350 absences a day, Bitto said, including absences of just one period.
"It varies," she said. "We have little less than 2,400 students, so it just depends on what time of year. It depends on if it's a Friday. It depends on if it's a Thursday before a three-day weekend."
