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School Board Journal
November / December 1995
January / February 1996

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Looking for a homework hotline?
Recruit a business sponsor

If your school district is looking for a convenient way to improve connections between teachers and parents, a suburban Chicago company is looking for you.

MacMillan Technologies, Ltd., of Woodridge, is making an offer to schools interested in using a computer-operated voice mail system to maintain a homework hotline and other communications with parents and students. A homework hotline enables parents to easily find out what their children are supposed to be doing for schoolwork. And students can use it when they forget their assignments.

The company already provides the voice mail systems in a number of suburban schools and foots much of the cost in return for the publicity the system generates. Patrick Orr, president of MacMillan Technologies, says the company will consider doing the same for other schools in Illinois or help find local corporate sponsors.

The business sponsor provides equipment, operation, maintenance, training and a computer program that enables teachers and coaches to make their own individualized daily or weekly messages accessible by telephone. The school or district also can build in more generic messages regarding regulations, curriculum, tips to parents, coming events and other information.

A participating school pays for telephone lines and programming of individual voice mail boxes and passwords a small portion of the total cost of setting up the system. The school also pays any monthly charges for phone calls.

MacMillan Technologies or other business sponsor receives public acknowledgement for providing the system. (See "A tip on sponsor recognition" above.)

School faculty and staff record content for their voice mail boxes (homework assignments, coming events and the like). Although the task takes only about five minutes per recording, it's one that requires some training. Recording a message also takes planning, especially for homework assignments. For some school districts, therefore, the biggest obstacle may be generating faculty enthusiasm. MacMillan requires evidence that teachers really want the voice mail system and will use it faithfully to disseminate homework assignments and other information.

The experiences of schools already using the system bear testimony to the wisdom of that requirement. The homework hotline quickly becomes important to parents, says Laura Lee Jordan, principal at Thomas Jefferson Junior High School, in Woodridge School District 68. Her school (enrollment 760 students) logged nearly 16,000 calls to the main menu last school year, and parents will complain if recordings are not kept up-to-date, she observes.

Jordan said she shares periodic reports on hotline utilization with teachers "as a reminder to record and as a reminder of how important the service is to parents and students."

One side benefit: the voice mail system keeps people informed, so teachers and secretaries receive far fewer telephone calls.

Thomas Cusack, superintendent of Westchester School District 92.5, likewise considers faculty support the key. He said the homework hotline has proved to be a great asset to schools in his district (875 total enrollment), but staff must be regularly reminded to keep messages updated.

To administrators in other districts, Cusack recommends careful research to make certain the system meets the needs of teachers and parents. There is no point using voice mail, or any other medium, to disseminate information that no one needs.

High school teachers may be harder to sell on a homework hotline because they'll think it unnecessary for older students, says Jackie DeFazio, principal at Glenbard East High School, in Lombard. Nonetheless, she reports, the system has proved to be a great way to reach out to parents and the community even in her 2,000-student high school, where the voice mail system averaged 450 to 500 calls per night during the past year.

There also is one other catch. Patrick Orr considers two phone lines essential, no matter how small the school or community, and two lines are enough to accommodate the parents of 2,000 students under most circumstances. Orr recommends that schools or districts consider sharing a voice mail system, although other costs may arise if toll calls are involved.

To obtain more information, get in touch with Patrick Orr, president of MacMillan Technologies, Ltd., 8280 Janes Avenue, Suite 144, Woodridge, Illinois 60517, or call 708/963-3038.

A tip on sponsor recognition