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IMPORTANT P.O. INFO:
P.O.s made out to CalSAVE will be returned for correction.
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Make P.O. payable to:
SchoolReach
9735 Landmark Parkway,
Suite 100
Saint Louis, MO 63127

Fax PO to CalSAVE: (866) 488-3729

Please include your email address on your cover sheet! We will email you confirmation that we received it.

California Wildfires: How a Parent Notification System Worked in a True Emergency

California is no stranger to wildfires. In October 2007, a series of fires ravaged the hills of Southern California from Santa Barbara County to the United States-Mexico border. A state of emergency was declared in seven Southern California counties where more than 1,500 homes were eventually destroyed and over a half-million acres burned.

As the fires flamed, Kathleen Mock, principal at St. Michael’s School in Poway, knew she needed a quick way to communicate with school families. The Witch Creek Fire, burning in northern San Diego County, was getting uncomfortably close to the St. Michael’s campus.

Earlier that year, St. Michael’s signed on with SchoolReach, a parent phone notification system which has since been awarded a CalSAVE piggybackable purchasing contract through the Monterey County Office of Education. When Poway residents received an evacuation order, Kathleen Mock knew it was time to set the SchoolReach system in to action.

Prior to the wildfires, St. Michael’s had never used its SchoolReach system. After the evacuation order was issued, Mock went to school and sent her first SchoolReach message.

“SchoolReach was a fantastic tool for me. I had never initiated a trial run for calling, so Sunday evening when I rushed to school to send my first message to cancel school, I had no idea how it would work.”

SchoolReach instantly broadcasted Mock’s message to parents, letting them know that school was cancelled. Because SchoolReach was able to send messages to home, work and cell phone numbers, Mock felt secure that she had communicated with parents, regardless of where they were, even if they had already evacuated themselves.

After the message was sent, SchoolReach also provided message delivery statistics for the principal to review. As the week went on and the fires burned, Mock used her cell phone to keep parents updated on the school’s status through the parent notification system.

SchoolReach won its California contract with the Monterey County Office of Education (MCOE) after responding to MCOE’s call for a competitive sealed bid. The bid solicitation was simultaneously announced by 22 other education purchasing cooperatives in other states in order to leverage national spending volume and to obtain the best possible volume pricing.

However, the bid was locally advertised in Monterey County and independently awarded by the Monterey County Office of Education under the requirements of Public Contract Code 20111, 20118 and other relevant California statutes. SchoolReach is offerings its bests prices in California to agencies that use the CalSAVE contract through MCOE.