Superintendent now requires auto-caller for absences

PORTLAND, Ore. - For the first time, Portland Public Schools Superintendent Carole Smith required all schools in the district to use the auto-attendance dialing system that was not in use at Skyline School when Kyron Horman disappeared last Friday.

Until now, it was thought of as a way to prevent truancy and not keep children safe.

School officials said skipping school isn’t an issue at Skyline so when Horman wasn’t in class Friday the school did not automatically call his parents.

The new plan is to call every parent by midday instead of the evening, which is the practice for most schools. Searchers lost a six-hour window when Horman disappeared Friday morning after his stepmother dropped him off at a science fair. A search did not start until the evening hours after his parents called police when Horman didn’t get off the bus at 3:30 p.m.
 
Parents in the district learned about the disappearance that evening through an automated phone message.

The district may also upgrade its policy to require visitors to check in during a regular school day and wear a badge or visitor’s sticker. Also under review, is whether to require visitors to check in at open public events like science fairs.

“We can either manage people coming into the building, or is it better to manage the students and keep them contained,” said Matt Shelby, a spokesman for Portland Public Schools. “(We’re) not quite sure yet, it’s going to be a little different for every school and for every situation.”

With video cameras just about everywhere, some parents wondered why they’re not in most schools and were not in Skyline.

Shelby said, “that’s something we can look at, but obviously that’s a resource issue as well.”

He said the automated attendance dialing system is not a question of money and every school has the technology but until Horman vanished they could choose not to use it.

Family statement (pdf) Kyron Horman flier (pdf).