BRPS Enhanced Parent Notification System

Beginning January 5, 2015, Big Rapids Public Schools will begin using Edulink notification system to better communicate important information to our district parents. Edulink provides Big Rapids Public Schools a communication tool that will be used for daily attendance, athletic and activity notifications, fee notices, inclement weather days, and most importantly, notifying our parents in the event of an emergency within our district.

Edulink has the ability to contact thousands of people within minutes either by using the primary phone number in the household, or by using the parent’s email address. Choosing the notification type, phone or email, is based upon the type of message being sent.

Edulink will be used by each school to make attendance calls to children’s homes who are absent and have not previously been excused by their parent. In this situation, phone calls to the parent’s primary number will be made in the morning on school days and another call will take place in the evening for these types of absences.

Edulink will also be used by the district for weather related school outages. This process will be an email notification to the parent’s email address. BRPS will not make a phone call to you for weather related school outages.

Big Rapids Public Schools will also be able to quickly make emergency notifications to our parents. In the event of an emergency that impacts one school building, BRPS will use both phone and email notifications to notify parents of students within that building. In the event of a district wide emergency, parents of students district-wide will receive both an email and phone call.

In the future, BRPS intends to add additional notification options to this system, including fee notices, eligibility notifications, and other opportunities that may help you to be better informed. Other enhancements and changes may be a result of updates and familiarity with features of the Edulink system.

It is also important that you know that your contact information will never be shared.

It is important to BRPS that we can contact parents as quickly as possible when necessary. In order for our new notification system to be successful, we need accurate contact information for every family. The easiest way to make sure BRPS has your correct primary phone number and email address is to update your information from within Skyward family access. All parents are encouraged to sign up for the free family access service at Big Rapids Public Schools. To get signed up, simply visit the Big Rapids Public Schools website at http://www.brps.org and click on “Parents”, then select “Family Access Application” to apply for an account. Once you have successfully logged into family access, simply click the “my account” link at the top right of your family access page, and update your contact information. Edulink uses your primary phone number and email address, so setting these values to your best available contact is vital.

If you have any questions about our new notification system, please feel free to contact Big Rapids Public Schools at 231 796 2627, or email our technology director, Joe Bouman at jbouman@brps.org.