Honeywell Instant Alert® for Schools

Keeping families informed and involved helps to assure student safety and improve student success.  With today’s busy lifestyles, it has become more difficult for schools to reach families quickly and effectively.  This is why our District has decided to implement a new system, created by Honeywell International, Inc., called Instant Alert® for Schools. Instant Alert for Schools is an essential tool for notification and communication.  Within minutes of an emergency, school officials will now be able to use Instant Alert to deliver a single, clear message to the students’ parents or guardians by telephone, cell phone, e-mail, pager or PDA, in any combination.  Instant Alert will also be used in West Milford to notify you of school closings, delayed openings, or early dismissals due to inclement weather.  It is an equally effective way to keep you informed of everyday activities, such as event times and locations as well as schedule changes. Instant Alert is Internet based, allowing each family to maintain a secure, password protected, online profile.  Instructions for accessing the system and creating your profile are on the right side of this page.  You can log onto your profile at any time to update your contact information.  Maintaining the accuracy of your profile will increase the ability of the District to keep you informed.  It is your responsibility to enter and update this information. Your online profile will enable you to: •     Input your personal contact information •     Select which type of school information you would like to receive on each of your contact devices •     Add contact information of other caretakers of your children, such as a grandparent or neighbor The system is now ready for you to access at https://instantalert.honeywell.com.  We encourage all of you to take advantage of this opportunity, as we will be utilizing this system for most of our school-to-home communications.  We will run a test of the system in January 2008. If you need assistance with your profile, you may send an email to InstantAltertHelp@Honeywell.com, or contact your school.  If you do not have a computer, you may access one at the Township Library or contact your child’s school, who will provide arrangements within the District.  We hope you appreciate and enjoy this new service! Category Definitions This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather a sampling of the types of notifications for each category. 1. High Importance – District wide issues including emergency closings, delayed openings and early dismissals, unreported absence calls, health and safety issues, and other urgent notices. 2. School Information – School-based events and notices unique to a particular school, such as reminders for Back-to-School nights, Parent/Teacher Conferences, concerts, etc. 3. Transportation – Snow route notifications and other bus related issues. 4. Activities – Club and sport activities, PTA events, Community School, and announcements for SACC & Preschool, etc. 5. General – Election reminders, Special meetings of the Board of Education, and other miscellaneous notifications. Remember, you will not get an alert if you are not part of the notification group.  For example, only those families in the snow route group who select transportation will get an alert.  If you have the transportation box selected and not on a snow route you will not be notified when snow routes go into effect.

Parent User Interface - Instructions Minimum Requirements Register and create your account 1. Go to the Honeywell Instant Alert for Schools website listed above. 2. If you are not a staff member in the school, click on ‘Parent’ in the New User box. 3. If you are a staff member in the school, use the user name and password given to you by the school. 4. Complete the student information form.  Click ‘Submit.’ 5. Complete the corresponding screen.  Click ‘Submit.’ 6. After receiving the Confirmation message, click ‘Proceed’ to get started with Instant Alert. 7. Note: Remember your Login Name and Password so you may use it to update your profile. View and check details about yourself and your family members 1. Upon successful login, click on ‘My Family.’ 2. Click on a parent name to view and edit parent details. 3. Click on a student name to view details about your children enrolled in this school. Configure alert settings for yourself 1. Click on ‘Alert Setup.’  2. Click on the check boxes to select which alert type you would like to have sent to which device.  Click on ‘Save’ when complete. 3. If you would like to add another contact device, select the device type and enter the device details.  Select the person to whom the device belongs and click on ‘Add.’  4. For e-mail, text messaging and pagers you may send yourself a test message.  Click on ‘Send Test Message’ to send yourself a message. NOTE: Do not select “Spanish” as your preferred language. Alerts will be sent in English only; if you choose Spanish you will not receive an alert. Additional Functions View History of Alerts Click on ‘Alert History’ to view Alerts that have been sent to you.  Use the calendar icons and ‘Alert Type’ list to filter the Alerts. Identify key contacts for your children 1. Click on ‘Other Contacts.’ 2. Click on ‘Add New Contact’ and complete the form. 3. Click on the ‘Pick Up Rights’ check box if you wish to allow this person the right to pick up your child from school.  This person’s name will appear on a report for the school. 4. Click on ‘Save’ when complete. 5. If you would like this person to receive Alerts from the school, return to the ‘Alert Setup’ page to configure this person’s alert settings. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS For Assistance: https://instantalert.honeywell.com Click on the Help Request link in the lower right hand side of the page Be sure to set your e-mail spam filter to receive e-mail from Honeywell.com.