Coming to school on delays/cancellations a thing of the past thanks to Honeywell System

by Braily Lee

Everyone’s had one of those mornings where you haul yourself out of bed, get around and go outside, stand in freezing weather waiting for the bus, all just to find out that school’s been delayed or canceled! Of course, when you hear the news you’re overjoyed that you get to go back inside and go back to sleep, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a forewarning so you wont have to go through all that? Well now we have a way to do just that through the Honeywell System.

The Honeywell System is an Internet-based program that contains parent and student information. This allows all registered students and faculty to receive a recorded message about the delay or cancellation. It can be set up to call your home phone or cell phone and can even be sent in an email or text. If received in a call, you will hear a recording of Pittsford Area Schools superintendent Mr. Shaw’s voice telling you the news. If you, for any reason, change your phone number, your parents can log online for the instructions on how to proceed with changing that. This system will give the school a way to contact everyone when such needed situations arise. “It is a system that will call all the parents, all the homes and let them know when there’s a delay, school closing, special event that’s happening at school, or when a situation arises at the school during the day,” said Mr. Cook.

The school board, with the help of Jonesville/Reading superintendent Mike Potts, organized a plan to get this system to our district. The cost is two dollars per student (paid for by the school, not the student—this was just an easy way of explaining how much it cost), the payment will last all year, and the phone call is free. Mr. Shaw, PHS principal Mr. Cook, maintenance supervisor Mr. O’Haver, and some of the other faculty members have gone through a training session on how to use the system and how to program the data in. This system will be a huge benefit for the school and students. “It’s a nice inter-communication device for the parents and kids,” said Mr. Shaw. This system will also help the school cut down on the large efforts the school used to have to contact everyone. “ It’s going to cut down on the communication efforts, its one effort that gets to everyone so we’re not constantly fielding the phone calls,” said Mr. Cook