Honeywell Instant Alert System

As you are aware, Regional School District 17 is committed to maintaining frequent and ongoing communication with our parents.

The challenges associated with keeping parents informed and involved help to assure student safety and improve student success at all levels. With today’s busy lifestyles, it has become more difficult for schools to reach families quickly and effectively. This is why our school has decided to implement a new system called Instant AlertTM for Schools using federal grant funds available through the Safe and Drug Free Schools program.

Instant Alert for Schools is an essential tool for notification and communication. Within minutes of an emergency, school officials can use Instant Alert to deliver a single, clear message to the students’ parents or guardians by telephone, cell phone, e-mail, pager or PDA in any combination. Instant Alert can also be used to notify you of a school closing due to inclement weather. It’s an equally effective way to keep you informed of everyday activities, such as event times and locations as well as schedule changes.

Instant Alert is internet based, allowing each family to maintain a secure, password protected online profile. Included in this letter is an instruction sheet for accessing the system and creating your profile. You can log into your profile at any time to update your contact information. Maintaining the accuracy of your profile will increase the ability of the school to keep you informed. Your online profile will enable you to:

• Input your personal contact information
• Select which type of school information you would like to receive on each of your contact devices
• Send yourself a test text message to make sure your text messaging contact information is entered correctly
• Add contact information of other caretakers of your children, such as a grandparent or neighbor
• Designate these caretakers as the main contact for your children if you are out of town

In addition to receiving communication alerts on your designated contact devices, the alert messages will also appear in your online profile. You can use this feature to read any alerts that may have been erased or deleted accidentally on your other contact devices.
The system will be ready for you to use district-wide and in all schools on April 7, 2006. In order to activate the use of the system, a test message will be sent out during the afternoon on that day. We encourage all of you to take advantage of this opportunity, as we will be utilizing this system for most of our school-to-home communication. As a way of getting you started with the confidential registration process, I have provided the Parent Instruction Sheet on the back of this letter. This information was provided courtesy of Honeywell and is intended to allow you to begin to receive information sent out by the district or at each school. If you need assistance with setting up your profile, please send an email to InstantAlertHelp@Honeywell.com, or feel free to contact any school’s principal. If you do not have access to a computer, please feel free to come to the school to use our equipment.

Link to https://instantalert.honeywell.com/