Erroneous Absentee Message Sent to Seth Boyden Parents

Updated: Nate Brogan, VP of Marketing for SchoolMessenger reports that the incident today at Seth Boyden was operator error. Brogan says that the staff member who generated the message "shortly after overriding the fail-safe, recognized the error and cancelled the message." Unfortunately, the message had already been sent to many parents. Brogan said that SchoolMessenger already has its "support team in touch with the appropriate folks to make sure it doesn't happen again."

The messages started coming via cell, phone and email after 2:30 p.m. this afternoon.

The message stated that the call was being made from Seth Boyden School and was being made to inform parents or guardians that their child was not present for school today.

The majority of parents in the school received the message according to a PTA member posting on the school email blast list.

Calls to the school office were met with busy signals as parents called in. Numerous parents drove or walked to the school to ensure that their child was present when they could not get through via phone. Administrative staff at the school were calmly answering phones and assuring parents that their children were indeed at school and safe.

By 2:45 p.m. a parent had posted on the Strawberry Fields school email list that the calls were a mistake.

Late this afternoon Assistant Superintendent Jim Memoli sent this message via SchoolMessenger

Due to an error in transmission, an erroneous message was sent to all Seth Boyden parents stating that their children were absent from school. We apologize for any concern or inconvenience this may have caused.

Patch will report further information about the incident as it becomes available.