After a lockdown at Pleasant Valley Elementary School Thursday, some parents are questioning why they weren't notified sooner about the lockdown. Police were looking into a custody matter that led to the lockdown, which delayed school buses from leaving the school for about 35 minutes.
Friday, Rockingham County School Superintendent Dr. Carol Fenn spoke about why the notification came so long after the lockdown.
"If it's a police matter and we're working under the direction of police, it would be after all of that is complete and finished before we would contact family and take the time to do that," says Fenn.
Currently, Rockinhgham County Public Schools has a notification system in place that can e-mail parents, which Fenn says won't work for every household.
She says, "That's always our dilemma is how can you reach everyone. If we did an e-mail system or a text messaging, cellphone notification kind of thing, similar to the Virginia Tech notification system of course cost would be a consideration."
David Uhlig, coordinator of Management Info Systems for Charlottesville City Schools, says, "All it takes is one emergency for us to realize the value of that system of quickly notifying our parents of whatever the problem is."
Currently Charlottesville City Schools use the Alert Now system, which can make thousands of calls at once, and send e-mails and text messages.
"We felt that this one functioned as well as any of them and it was the least expensive of the systems," says Uhlig
Rockingham County is looking into systems used by other schools before they think of upgrading the current one.