School Phone tree question

I'm having a minor disagreement with the administration in my school. We have always had a snow phone tree and everyone who wanted to be on it received a call and then phoned the next person if school was cancelled. Our names and phone numbers are printed on the "tree" and it is distributed to the staff. Last year and this year it has been required that we participate in the snow tree. I have asked several times to be removed from the "tree". I do not want to receive a phone call and really don't want my name and phone number distributed throughout school. Our district has a text messaging service for all patrons with the local bank, and I receive the text message a good 20 minutes before my "call". Therefore, I just want to roll over, look at my phone and go back to sleep. This service is for everyone, therefore should I be required to receive and make a call, and have my name on the d*&n list?

Yeah, yeah, I have such problems in life!

They haven't heard of email?

We have a required phone tree at our school but it is only used for emergencies. I have an unlisted/unpublished phone number so I requested that I be at the top of the tree so that one of our administrators had to contact me. School closing are announced on our local news stations and we also receive an email.

My older brother teaches at a private school and is required to give his phone number to all parents and staff members. It is not unusual for him to receive 2 -3 calls on any given night from students or parents. I must admit that would drive me crazy.

Does your district have a policy regarding phone trees? Private or public schools. If public can your teacher organization help you with this issue?

Good luck and I hope you get a few snow days!

I live in a rural area and the only place you can get high speed internet is in town. The outside phone lines are so bad that if you can get up to a dial up speed of 33k, you are lucky. People tend to not have the internet out of town because of this, they just use it at school. Even if they do it takes so long to connect, it would be better to get a call. The texting service, however, does also send an email. It's free.

I guess I should say that this is a friendly battle. I like the guy I work for, but I just don't see why I should be required to do this. In his defense, he did put me at the bottom and had my sister in law call me, so I just told her DO NOT CALL ME. I just don't see how you can be required to publish your phone number for anything other than as an emergency contact. I should also add that most people want to be on this tree.

As for makbike and her private phone number...that wouldn't be so friendly, I'm afraid. Can you be made to publish a private number? There's a reason it's private. I'm afraid I wouldn't pass any number out to students. Email, sure, phone...no. I don't answer my house phone anyway, I only have it for the internet. I screen the calls and return messages if appropriate. (In town...high speed...can't live without it)

Haven't they heard of auto-dialers? Then no one is dependent on other parents availability and no one's phone number is published. Only the auto-dialer database has the numbers. And with voice recognition, text-to-speech and the opposite can be sent.

Claudia,

I am not required to publish my phone number. I pay extra every month on my phone bill so that I do have to deal with students or parents calling me at all hours. I have given my number to a few people at school along with the direction that they are not to give it out to anyone without first checking with me. I've been there 20 years and only one person did not honor my request. We talked their error has never been repeated.

I don't think fighting this battle is worth the aggravation, even if it is a friendly battle. When one has to put together a phone/calling list, people who have privacy-fetish driven rules about contacting them cause a huge amount of extra work for nobody's gain. Except the privacy fetish person.
If it is really that important to you to not be bothered, get voice mail.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tc1

I don't think fighting this battle is worth the aggravation, even if it is a friendly battle. When one has to put together a phone/calling list, people who have privacy-fetish driven rules about contacting them cause a huge amount of extra work for nobody's gain. Except the privacy fetish person.
If it is really that important to you to not be bothered, get voice mail.

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I have voice mail. Not answering at 5am is not an option. I'm expected to take the call and make the next call or the tree is broken. This isn't a parent evening thing. This thread just took that turn for a bit, and I found that part interesting. It's teachers and staff early morning on snow days to let us know school is canceled, and I sometimes have to wait up to 30 minutes after I my receive my text to "run" my part of the phone tree because that is how slow it is. As for putting together a list, why can't they just collect the names of those that want to be on it like they did in the past? This list is not for students or parents, it's not a school directory or anything else. It is simply a call to let us know school is canceled. That's it. With our text service, I don't need the call. The bank sponsors the text, but our school sends it, so basically I'm getting the info from the same source twice. With a 30 minute wait for the call.

My school won't even distribute staff directories and if a parent wants to contact a teacher by email they have to click a link on our school website. Emails are not visible. So you see, this really isn't important in the grand scheme of things, just annoying.

Yea, this is a teacher thing. At my last school, we were asked if we wanted to be on the chain. Last year, when I did the long term sub job, I was not on there, obviously, since I started in Feb. There was one delayed opening a couple of weeks later; I heard it on TV a lot earlier than I would have received the call.
The school I worked in before that routinely started the chain at 5 AM. At the last school, it was sometimes 6 before I got called... after I had gone back to sleep because I had already seen it on the news.