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Blackboard Connect (for Parents and Guardians)
Sharing pertinent school and district information is a top priority in the Mad River School District. Accordingly, we have adopted the Blackboard Connect Notification Service to send telephone and/or e-mail messages to you regarding weather-related closings, emergencies, or important school events. Our goal is that in the event of an emergency situation, you will be informed immediately by phone and/or e-mail. Blackboard has replaced One Call Now.
Blackboard allows school and district administrators to send messages to staff, parents, and students using any combination of: phone (AKA Robo Calls), email, text message, posts to social media, and website alerts.
Messenger also sends automated attendance and negative lunch balance messages.
Blackboard Connect works with our student database, DASL, and doesn’t require any sign-up by parents. Contact phone numbers and/or email addresses will be taken from DASL data. It is important that parents keep their contact information up-to-date with their school's secretary. If you need to update or correct your contact information, please call your child’s school office during regular school hours to update it.
Important Information Regarding Text Notification
In addition to email, MRLS will use text messages to contact parents and guardians as circumstances warrant. Please note that all parents and guardians are automatically opted into the system, however, in order to receive text messages, you must have a telephone number identified specifically as a cell phone number on file at your child(s) school. If you do not have a cell phone number on file, you will not receive text messages. If you need to update this information, contact your student's school.
It is important to note that when you receive a text message from MRLS it will come in from what is known as a shortcode. In the screenshot below, the shortcode is 606-80. Blackboard is used by many schools, universities, and municipalities. You may receive texts from other schools, universities, or municipalities via this same shortcode.
Message and data rates may apply. If you do not want to receive text notifications, simply reply STOP in response to the issued text from the appropriate cell phone. To re-subscribe, type SUBSCRIBE from the appropriate cell phone. To comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations, individual text preferences will be managed directly by the end-user through Blackboard. MRLS personnel will not be able to stop or re-subscribe on any recipient’s behalf.
In emergencies, or when school will be dismissed during the day or canceled altogether, the system will call/text all phone numbers and e-mail all e-mail addresses on record. This includes the “emergency contact” person(s) you have listed in DASL.
If you do NOT get contacted and feel you should have received a message you should first check for any sent messages to your phone number and/or email address before calling the school. If you are not receiving email messages, please check your spam/junk mail folder. If your email is a work email, you may want to check with your technology department to see if the email provider is allowing emails from our notification system to go through or not.
Caller ID will display (937) 259-6617.
Blackboard Connect leaves messages on any answering machine or voicemail.
If the message stops playing, press any key 1-9, and the message will replay.
Blackboard App
The Mad River School District app connects you to events, information, resources, and MORE. A streamline of information and tools, the app has everything you need to stay up-to-date.
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