Parents panic after glitch reports students as absent

EVERETT — Hundreds of students were inadvertently reported absent from two Everett elementary schools Monday, leaving some parents in a panic.

The glitch occurred with the automatic telephone reporting system the schools use to inform parents of student absences as well as send them mass voicemail messages of other matters, said Mary Waggoner, a school district spokeswoman.

The district contracts with a company called ConnectED for the service. It upgraded software over the weekend, adding new features.

“It was something that happened technologically in the company’s software,” Waggoner said. “They are making sure it doesn’t happen again.”

As a result, parents from Lowell and Silver Firs elementary schools started getting calls at home, at work and on their cell phones reporting their children absent Monday morning.

“It was the perfect storm, Waggoner said. “The problem was somehow embedded in the system when our two schools were making those calls.”

The problem was caught within 15 minutes, but it was too late to stop the flood of calls to the schools that ensued.

“It just made me sick instantly,” said Jody Hawkins, one of the panic-stricken parents who has a daughter in the fourth grade at Silver Firs.

Her husband received the initial voice message from the school and sent a text message to her while she was attending class at Everett Community College.

Hawkins couldn’t get through to the school because the sheer volume of parent calls overloaded the lines.

“When I couldn’t get a hold of the school, it was just a panic,” she said. “I had to make sure my daughter got to school.”

Waggoner said the district has never had a problem with the reporting system in the past.

“We have been using it for three years and parents love it,” Waggoner said. “It is an incredible way of staying in touch with parents. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, it works perfectly.”

Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com.