In an effort to better spread information about school outages and other issues to parents, the R-2 Board had considered bids from both Textcasters, a text messaging service, and SchoolReach, a text and phone messaging service.

Textcasters would have cost $1,800 annually, but was to be fully underwritten by the Bank of Sullivan. SchoolReach would have cost the district $4,200 per year.

The board could not agree at their December meeting on which program to use or if it should be implemented at mid-year.

Both systems were considered a benefit to the district, which currently has no way of immediately relating information about school closings to parents – other than via the radio and early morning TV newscasts.

At the January 17 meeting of the board, the membership decided to hold off their final decision until next summer.

Superintendent Waymon Boast called it a “tough decision to make. It is somewhat difficult to institute programs (like this) mid-year. We have a lot on our plate next year. Our recommendation is to go with SchooReach beginning August 1, 2008, but we want to wait and approve that in July.”

Boast said he had talked with other area school superintendents and they were happy with the SchoolReach system, which automatically dials parent phone numbers to leave them an automated voice message prepared by the school administration. Typically, the system is used for snow days or other emergency closings, but it has other applications, as well.

Bourbon and Steelville districts use SchoolReach, Sullivan uses Textcasters, and St. James has both SchoolReach and Textcasters under contract.

Board president Joe Cason noted his concern for using Textcasters, since those parents without cell phones wouldn’t be able to receive school texts.

“How do we know SchoolReach won’t fold?” asked board member K.C. Swope.

Boast replied that the company had been around for a long time and was being used by 150 schools across Missouri.

The board will revisit the issue this summer during budget preparations.