School Phone tree question

[makbike]

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 I have an unlisted/unpublished phone number so I requested that I be at the top of the tree so that one of our administrators had to contact me.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!

[uforgot]

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)

[SadieKate]

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.

[makbike]

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.