Families: opt in for text alerts

Posted December 5, 2019

As part of our ongoing effort to provide our families and employees with timely and accurate information during urgent safety- and weather-related events, the City School District of Albany will be expanding the use of the School Messenger platform to include text alerts.

We currently use the School Messenger notification system to contact families by phone with automated messages, commonly known as robo-calling. These new text alerts through School Messenger will be for urgent events only, including lockouts, lockdowns, evacuations and weather-related closings and delays. We plan to start implementing text alerts beginning in January. This is a new feature and is not related to the existing SNN (School New Notifier) service, which is primarily an email notification service with limited texting capabilities for snow days.

Families, please be aware that in order to comply with wireless carrier requirements and protect against unsolicited text messages, you must “opt in” to this new School Messenger text alert service.

Opt in at any time by texting “Y” or “YES” to 67587

To receive these text alerts, the number you opt in with must be on file for your child in our schooltool database. Please review your contact information in schooltool. If you would like to add a new cell number or change the existing number on file, please contact the main office of your child’s school.

At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 8, we sent a reminder text message to all cell numbers on file that have not yet opted in. The text came from our 67587 short code and read:

“City School District of Albany messages. Reply Y to subscribe or STOP to cancel. Msg&data rates may apply. Msg freq varies. Visit schoolmessenger.com/txt for info”

Please check with your wireless carrier for information about your mobile service plan and any possible charges related to text messaging. The district does not reimburse for any charges associated with sending or receiving text messages.

Staff also will be able to opt in for this service. The steps will be a little different for staff than for families, so please stay tuned for additional information about that.

Yours in education,