In the Schools, Calm in the Face Of the Storm

Living in LoCo is Erica Garman's blog devoted to all things interesting in Loudoun County. You can find it athttp://www.loudounextra.com. This column of highlights from the blog appears in this space every Sunday.

Most parents I heard from reacted positively to the Loudoun school system's decision to keep elementary school children past normal dismissal times and in tornado-drill mode as Wednesday's severe storm raged through the county, downing trees and blocking roadways.

One parent in Leesburg who has a child at John W. Tolbert Jr. Elementary e-mailed me: "You should write about what a great job the LCPS did just now keeping our kids safe as that storm blew through right at dismissal time. They get beat up plenty, but that was a fantastic and potentially life-saving decision."

Nicholas Graham has a child at Newton-Lee Elementary in Ashburn. He e-mailed: "Major kudos to the teachers, parents, the principal and all other administrators at Newton-Lee for taking care of our children, watching over them during a harrowing event, and being great human beings and professionals throughout. They did everything they could to make a scary event bearable for us parents and our kids."

Wayde Byard, spokesman for Loudoun County Public Schools, told me about the use of a new alert system, Connect Ed, to disseminate news of the late dismissal to parents.

He explained in an e-mail Wednesday: "We sent out the alert as soon as we went into the tornado drill; not a lockdown. (That's for intruders or crimes in the community.) As we were sending, a power outage took out our computers and we had to reboot and re-send. We also sent a Loudoun Alert message to make sure we got through.

"The problem we're having now is that people aren't taking the time to check their messages. They just see the number and hit re-dial. We've had about 1,000 call-backs from people who dial before they listen."

Good to know for future emergencies -- listen to your message!

Another systemwide call stated that middle and high school dismissals would be running late because of road closures and bus delays.

Connect Ed calls the numbers that parents have given to the school. It is for emergencies like Wednesday's, although principals also have used it for event and test reminders, Byard said.

The school district sent out 64,462 phone calls during the storm. Of those, 50,889 (78.9 percent) were live contacts, 10,557 (16.4 percent) were answering machines and 3,016 (4.7 percent) were invalid numbers.