Knowing that parents need timely information regarding school cancellations, early releases or emergency situations, Southern Boone is addressing this need with a new telephone messaging system.. SchoolReach Messaging will allow designated building and district personnel to place automated phone messages to households in the district. These messages will be delivered within minutes, creating an almost instantaneous notification. On Monday, October 5, we will initiate a test of the system. This test will allow us to verify telephone numbers and the accuracy of our existing information. The following list gives a brief run-down of what the system does.

Important Points:

• No registration by parents/legal guardians is required, all telephone information will be extracted from student registration records.
• Telephone and contact information is held confidential and is only used for messaging purposes, it will not be released to any other company or service.
• The service will deliver the message to answering machines as well as live answers.
• Answering machines should be set to no more than 4 rings before answering or the message could be missed.
• Live answers require a few seconds wait after you say "Hello". Multiple hellos will lengthen wait time before the message begins.
• Caller ID will display the main school number (573-657-2147).
• Pressing any key at the end of the message will prompt a repeat of the recorded message.

As noted above, on Monday, October 5, we will be sending a test message at 4 p.m. Monday's test will help determine the validity of the telephone data that is registered in our student information system. If you do not receive the test on Monday, please contact your child's building office and update your contact information. You may also verify your information through parent portal and contact your child's office with necessary changes.

While this messaging system will be used for those unexpected school cancellations and other emergency situations, it may also be used occasionally to send important building or district announcements. Television and radio stations listed on our Cancellations and Notifications page will still carry important school closings and other cancellation information.