Some students and staff at FAHS have recently complained about the Alert Now calls to home phones, which some people believe are being overused. But not everyone feels this way.
“I don’t feel they’re overused. The information is always very useful,” says senior Tiffany Wentzel.
High School Principal Michael DeAntonio explained that the call system saves paper and is a lot more efficient and cost-effective than receiving printed announcements. Most of the information is important for a majority of the student body, and the calls normally last less than a minute.
“I don’t think I overuse it. Most people are upset when they don’t get enough information from school,” DeAntonio commented
DeAntonio continued to defend the practice by explain just how easy it is to delete the messages or hang up the phone if the listener feels annoyed by the calls.
Still, an anonymous faculty member had the following to say: “The concept behind it is great. I think the technology is great as well. The only thing that gets people upset about it is that it’s called an emergency alert system, but sometimes it is used for announcements.”
Most people use their phones constantly in this day and age. In a society ruled by technology, we can expect similar controversies as technology becomes a more prevalent means of communicating ideas and information previously transferred through paper and ink.
The Tiger Times 
Jim Noraw
April 20, 2011
Schools could always use HomeworkNOW.com instead. Parents can choose exactly what alerts they are interested in getting and how they want to get them (email, text, phone call, mobile apps, facebook, etc.).