Buffalo Public Schools

My child is a student in the Buffalo Public School system, which obtained my phone number as part of the registration process. Unfortunately, BPS inappropriately uses this information to relentlessly robocall me and thousands of other parents.

99% of BPS calls are completely useless to parents.

For example, there are frequent robocalls from BPS that advertise jobs available at BPS for bus drivers and food service workers. Most parents already have jobs. BPS definitely does lack school bus drivers, resulting in horrible bus service. But maybe it would be better for BPS to offer decent wages to their drivers rather than asking parents to quit their professional careers, get a commercial driving license and drive buses at $19.80 per hour.

Some ridiculous and repeated time-wasting "nanny" and "parenting skills" messages have warned that after school some children play together without the supervision of adults, as if this is some horrible thing that parents were completely unaware of.

Does BPS expect that we take off work to supervise our responsible kids 100% of the time to be sure nothing bad happens? Most parents are glad when their generation alpha kids get off their iPads for some socialization. Not only do such "nanny" messages reflect poorly on the mentality of BPS administrators, they waste the time of parents, who are insulted and annoyed.

The rare messages I get that actually pertain to my child provide information that is already obvious to 99% of parents. In the many years my child has been a student in the Buffalo School System, I have received thousands of robocalls, but none of them has ever been of any use to me.

The style of the content of the robocalls is definitely not short and sweet.

Rather, the style is slow and long, as if someone is reading a long formal letter to someone who barely speaks English. Considering each robocall interrupts the activity of thousands of busy parents, why can't they just get to the point?

For example, how hard is it to have a robocall that says only "school is cancelled tomorrow due to snow", then hangs up? That is a two-second-long message of seven words. For the few parents that do not already know that school is cancelled from the internet or the gigantic snowdrift blocking their car, that is really all they need to know.

Everything else is implied.

Instead, we get "This is a message from Buffalo Public Schools. Please listen carefully to the following important message (several second pause) Greetings parents. This is Mrs. (name), the director of (some department at BPS).

In consultation with (a weather agency) and (name and title of some government official), due to the current winter storm, it has been decided by (name and title of some administrator with BPS) that all Buffalo Public Schools will be closed tomorrow, (specific date). The safety of our students is our utmost priority. All after school activities are also cancelled. All school lunches are also cancelled.

We will keep you posted with any updates about the weather. It is dangerous to be outside. Please be sure your children dress warmly when outside..." and on and on.

If school is cancelled tomorrow, we do not need the details of how that was decided, how to deal with cold weather, that each and every activity associated with school is also cancelled or that we will be updated as needed. Such information is irrelevant or implied by the simple fact that school is cancelled due to snow.

Excessive, irrelevant and needlessly wordy robocalls from BPS are a known thing.

Just google "robocalls from Buffalo Public Schools". You will find numerous complaints about the excessive robocalling, including at least one lawsuit against BPS. Inexplicably, despite many complaints, BPS just keeps on doing it. Instead of taxpayer money going to teach our children, it is going to pay legal fees and damages.

I have complained to BPS about the robocalling. They agreed to take me off their robocall list, but the calls keep coming.That is why I recommend that parents of new students seriously consider not providing their phone number. You cannot trust BPS to message appropriately or take you off the robocall list when you ask.

I gave two stars instead of zero stars because the education itself is ok, and the staff I have dealt with are great. My only significant problem is the infuriating stupidity of their robocall messages.

The excessive amount of robocalling comes from the good intention of keeping parents informed, but a balance must be made between keeping parents informed vs flooding them with so many lengthy calls that they hang up before getting to what may actually concern them.

Instead of doing messaging like a rambling morning announcement at a school, a more succinct and targeted method of messaging is needed, appropriate for the audience of busy parents. If chess club will be meeting in a different room tomorrow, only the parents of the 4 chess club members need to be told that, not the entire school district.

There must already be a database that associates each phone number with information the school district already has, such as the school the student goes to, their grade, whether or not the student is bussed, their after school activities and so on, all useful parameters for dividing phone numbers into those that should and should not get any particular message. Digital recordings of concise messages, relevant for a given phone number, can be automatically joined into a single customized call for each phone number.

There are inexpensive modern messaging solutions that do this. BPS does not need to use robocalling technology from the 1970s.