Landline, Cellphone, Email

A classroom parent mentioned they wanted to receive any important notices by email and not using the phone tree.

A phone tree? That is so 70’s.

However, it is important to remember that some people are still “stuck in the 70’s” using old technology. Not everyone advances at the same pace. Not everyone has a cell phone.

If this organization were to go to a unified alerting system, which is the current trend with technology, there is one small problem. This organization has problems with email and their internet provider almost on a weekly basis.

A further dependence on technology might not be the best immediate solution for them.

This brings up several major issues for the school, how do they handle emergency alerting? What happens if something happens to the building and all the records are inside? Can the parents be contacted?

But the real question, which came up as a result of all this, what is their emergency plan for the school? If such a plan were in place, then how to handle student emergency records would not be an issue. It would also be clearly documented the process for taking care of the students and where they might be relocated.

With all these questions that still remain, where do we start?

Understanding the processes that are in place, making sure that everyone knows them, looking at the legal requirements for an emergency plan at a school, and working with professionals to meet those requirements. Then, later in the process, leverage the technology to support those operational business requirements.

We will leave testing the process or conducting exercises for a discussion for another day.

Once you have all of this figured out, what about the company you work for?