By Moses Leos III

For Hays CISD Public Information Officer Tim Savoy, notifying parents of potential crisis situations is often just a mouse click or screen tap away. 

With a variety of options to disseminate messages, Hays CISD joins a variety of other school districts that use technology to advance communication to the public. 

Savoy said events such as the most recent Halloween floods provide the district practice in its  quest to get fast, accurate information in the event of serious incident. 

“I always look at these situations as good practice for situations that we hopefully never have,” Savoy said. “If we do, we’ll be ready to go and parents will know where to go to find information.” 

According to Savoy, the district’s focus on using social media began roughly 15 years ago. He said at the time, the district “didn’t have a lot of tools to communicate with people.” As a result, the district relied heavily on the media. 

But with struggles to get accurate information in a timely manner, the district switched to the internet, primarily social media, to get the word out on crisis situations. 

Savoy said a crisis situation involves either a lockdown, evacuation or an event where something “immediately is going on unexpectely at the school,” or when the school is preparing for a weather event. 

With new tools in place, the district has the ability to spread information. The district utilizes platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, which Savoy said are syncronized. Savoy then takes that message and will transfer it to the district’s website, or through email. 

In addition, the district will also spread those messages through its smartphone application. Savoy said the district avoided spreading information via text message. The move was based on text limitations some carriers had in the past. He added that the application “is good, if not better than a text.” 

Savoy, however, said the district works to avoid sending phone calls during the middle of the school day. 

“We try to reserve the phone calls for the ‘we need to tell you something right now,’” Savoy said. “That is the most alarming phone call [to parents], in the middle of the day, from the school.” 

The ultimate idea, according to Savoy, is to give parents information to alleviate any fear. But Savoy said some cases, such as ongoing law enforcement investigations, sometimes means the district can’t divulge all information at that time. 

“People have a fear of what’s going on in their child’s school,” Savoy said. “They want to know, and we want to tell you what we can tell you, which, in my opinion, is everything we’ve verified and doesn’t affect a police department’s investigation or hinder efforts to keep everyone safe.” 

But he acknowledged there are downsides to the social media aspect. One such issue occurred recently during a non-incident at Lehman High School when the word “gun” and “gum” were confused. 

While the school didn’t go under lockdown, a few students texted parents and passed information of a lockdown, which made its way to the media. 

Savoy said the district issued a statement on social media to rectify the issue. 

In addition, parents have occasionally lodged complaints of not being notified of crisis situation notices. 

“It’s interesting, because we’re notifying (people) on Facebook,” Savoy said. “We want (people) to know if you see a message on Facebook, it’s an official message from the district.” 

For Savoy, keeping parents notified is the ultimate factor. 

“We can’t tell you we’re going to do it right. We may not always do it right. but we can do it very well time and again,” Savoy said. “Hopefully it can build the trust with people to know that we’ll be there and communicate.”