CHAMPAIGN – With the winds howling and snow blowing Sunday, the same question popped up among families across town.

Will we have a snow day tomorrow?

Champaign parents may have learned the answer that evening via radio, television or Internet, but they also received a friendly phone call or e-mail – or both – from the school district.

The district's new emergency notification system went into full swing for the first time, dialing up parents who had provided contact information when they registered their children for school in the fall. In some cases, parents received calls on their home and cell phones and an e-mail.

"I was really happy to get a call and an e-mail on Sunday night since it removed any uncertainty about school the next day," said Jill Gengler, who has a first-grader at South Side School.

The automated system is designed to alert parents and staff when weather forces a school closing or schedule change, and community relations coordinator Lynn Peisker said it appeared to work well. The district is asking parents who didn't get a call to update their contact information at their child's school.

Mahomet-Seymour and Urbana are among school districts with similar systems. Urbana started using automated alerts two years ago, mostly for attendance questions or special announcements, such as a power outage at Leal School that forced an early dismissal. But it used the system for the first time Monday to announce a weather-related closing, said Assistant Superintendent Don Owen.

"We feel it's just one more tool that we can use to keep parents informed," Owen said.

In this Internet age, the system may not sound as innovative as it would have a few years ago. School districts now post school-closing news on their websites, as do numerous media outlets – including this one – and news travels fast on Facebook and Twitter.

But with so many parents working, not everyone can be close to a computer or television at any given time, especially on days school has to be dismissed early because of weather, Peisker said.

"This way we can get the information directly to the parent," she said.

Gengler said the system is most useful for people without Internet access, but added, "I like getting official word from Unit 4, although the Web and Twitter were faster."

The system can also to be used in other situations, Peisker said. If a child is absent and the parent has forgotten to call the school, it can make an automated call to check on the student, she said.

Down the road, it may also be used to alert parents when their school-lunch balance is dipping close to zero, or to remind them of upcoming early-dismissal days, she said.

Owen said the system allows parents to customize their alerts. They can receive general announcements through email, for example, and emergency information through texts and phone calls. It can also send Spanish translations if parents choose that as their home language.

During the Champaign district's Great Schools Together planning process, Peisker said, one message came through loud and clear: Parents want better communication with schools.

"We just keep adding ways to do that," she said.

Champaign and Urbana both contract with School Messenger, one of several companies that provides the service. For Champaign the cost is $1.87 per student the first year, or about $18,000 for the 9,000-plus students, and the district's 1,500 employees are included at no cost. The price goes up to $2.25 per student the second year, Peisker said. Urbana's costs are in the same range, Owen said.

Mahomet Superintendent Keith Oates said his district purchased a system in fall 2008 from School Reach. It costs $2.50 for each of the approximately 2,900 students.

"It has, without a doubt, probably been the most popular thing we've initiated in the last few years," Oates said. "We just live in a day and age when people want live communication, and quick and instant communication."

Mahomet uses it for early-out reminders and snow days, but the system is most useful in crisis situations, he said.

Last spring, the district closed five schools early because of a bomb threat and used the alerts to notify parents and provide updates throughout the day. The situation turned out to be "nothing," Oates said, "but we couldn't take any chances."

"People just really appreciated that," he said. "They were all getting the same information at the same time. There's just no other way to do that.

"We still do the list-serves and we still post it on the website. It's just another means to communicate with parents quickly and accurately."