The Purpose of Critical Alert
Critical Alert is a school communication feature that sends emergency notifications to the school community. Examples of emergency communications include:
Severe weather (e.g., tornado, flood)
Dangerous person or active threat
Fire, gas leak, or hazardous material
Urgent school evacuation or lockdown
Shelter-in-place order
Unplanned closure due to emergency
Critical health/safety risk
The main goal of a critical alert is to reach the maximum number of parents and teachers in the school community.
How does School Signals deliver critical alerts?
School Signals notifies all users who have activated their account in School Signals.
All active users get an email notification.
Users with a mobile number associated with their account get a text message.
Users who have downloaded the School Signals app get a push notification.
One user could therefore get several notifications, via different delivery methods.
Critical Alerts override users' set notification preferences. Therefore, school admins should understand the use cases for Critical Alerts. Do not use Critical Alerts to update the community on non-critical matters.
Understanding the Legal Basis
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) generally requires prior express consent before sending automated calls or texts to wireless numbers. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has clarified that schools may lawfully send automated calls and texts without prior consent when the communication is for an emergency purpose.
The organization states, "We confirm that school callers may lawfully make robocalls and send automated texts to student family wireless phones pursuant to an "emergency purpose" exception or with prior express consent without violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)."
And, "We confirm that school callers may lawfully make autodialed calls and send automated texts to student family wireless phones without consent for emergencies including weather closures, fire, health risks, threats, and unexcused absences."
Read the full report: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-16-88A1.pdf