Sign Up for Iowa School Alert Today!
You will get email notifications when school is delayed.
January 22, 2012
Sign up for Iowa School Alerts -- a FREE e-mail notification service provided by the State of Iowa! NSK is a participant in the Iowa School Alerts program, which means you can sign up to receive free e-mail notifications when classes for our district, or a particular school building, are to be closed, dismissed early or started late due to the weather or other circumstances.
School Alerts is a free, easy-to-use program that is simply the result of finding an answer to a common problem: When school needs to be closed, how do we easily notify everyone who needs to know?
When schools need to dismiss classes, close early or start late due to bad weather or other circumstances, how do parents and care-givers find out? If they are listening to the radio or watching TV they can hear or see the list of school notices there, but what about taking the notification process a step further and contact them directly?
And what about those school administrators who currently have a long list of numbers to call when school is cancelled? What if they only had to log in and send out one message that will reach all media outlets, parents, daycare providers and other interested individuals who have signed up?
School Alerts provides a solution to both of these problems. School administrators can sign up to post notices about school closings, delays and early dismissals, and media outlets, parents and others can sign up to "watch" certain schools or school districts, and receive instant notifications when those school administrators post a notice.
There are two ways for parents, guardians, daycare providers, school staff and the media to receive notifications:
E-mail Alerts - When a school notice is sent out, you can receive an e-mail at home, work, or on e-mail-enabled mobile devices like cell phones and PDAs. To find out if you can receive e-mails on your mobile device, contact your service provider. Please note that School Alerts is not responsible for any fees your service provider may charge for receiving alerts.
Once you create an account, you can add as many e-mail addresses for as many schools or school districts as you like.
RSS Feed - School Alerts provides a Rich Site Summary (RSS) feed for websites that wish to give their site users a comprehensive list of notifications. This is a great way for the media, community sites and school-related organizations to publish notifications on their own website. You can personalize the RSS feed to only include alerts from the school districts in your area.
School Alerts is administered by the Iowa Department of Administrative Services and is offered as a free service for Iowa school districts and citizens.
Funding for development of this application came from the IOWAccess initiative, which seeks to provide e-government solutions to the people of Iowa.
HOW TO SIGN UP:
1) Click on "Sign Up!" in the Main Menu at https://schoolalerts.iowa.gov . This will take you to the "Enterprise A&A" screen for the State of Iowa. If you already have an account with the State (say, for another online application), there's no need to create another one.
2) Follow the on-screen instructions to enter your name and e-mail address, and create secret questions and your password. This step involves obtaining a code from an e-mail sent to you to confirm your registration.
3) Once you have created and confirmed your account registration, you will be taken back to the School Alerts site where you can click on "My Subscriptions" to add the school districts/buildings you would like to receive notices for. Once you've selected a school, you are asked to enter the e-mail addresses or cell phone addresses where you would life notifications sent. You can add as many e-mail addresses as you'd like! (Please note that some wireless service providers may charge you for receiving e-mails or text messages. You are responsible for those charges.)
That's it! After signing up you will receive e-mail notifications directly from the school whenever classes are cancelled. You can review your alert settings and all current notifications for the state at any time by visiting the Iowa School Alerts website: https://schoolalerts.iowa.gov.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost? There is no charge to sign up for Iowa School Alerts. Funding has been provided by the IOWAccess Advisory Council, which seeks to bring more e-government services to the citizens of Iowa. Please note, however, that you are responsilbe for any fees charged by your wireless provider for receiving messages.
How does it work? your school's superintendent logs in from any computer with an Internet connection and creates one message, which is then sent to everyone who has signed up to receive notices for the affected school district/buildings. Media outlets, day care providers, school staff and others are also being encouraged to sign up for notices. The computer application was designed by staff at the Iowa Department of Administrative Services.
Who do I contact with questions? Contact the school's administration office or send an e-mail to schoolalertsinfo@iowa.gov.
