MEDFORD - More than 2,000 people in Medford were called yesterday with an automated message: Their children were not in class.
So many parents started arriving at Brooks Elementary School to check on their children that officials put the place in lockdown.
Superintendent Roy E. Belson said a telephone glitch occurred shortly after the district's automated calling system went through its update. Someone forgot to log out of the database before trying to send a message sometime before noon to the few parents whose children had been marked absent. Instead, about 2,100 calls were made about students at various schools.
"A lot of people were obviously concerned," Belson said in an interview at his office. "Some ran right up to the schools. Some made phone calls."
In fact, Belson got so many phone calls that later attempts to leave a message on his line were unsuccessful, because his voicemail was clogged with messages. It was the first time he recalls having a problem with the automated phone system, which the district has used for two years to alert parents and faculty about student attendance and emergencies, among other situations. The systems have become more common in schools as the number of emergencies, such as snowstorms and violence, has risen.
Mary MacNamee, a mother of four, was home with a sick child when her phone started ringing with a message about an absent student.
"It was about a different child, and I thought, 'Oh, that was strange,' " MacNamee said. She thought that someone at the school had typed in the wrong child's name, she said. "And then I got the second call about another child who was not home sick . . . and then I got a third call about another child who was not home with me, and at this point, I knew something was up."
Shortly after, MacNamee said, she received a final call, with news of the glitch. Belson said the message was sent to parents about 15 to 20 minutes after the mistaken message went out.
Parent Geeta Jain said she tried to reach someone about her 5-year-old son, whom her husband had dropped off at Brooks yesterday along with their 7-year-old daughter. She had received a call that he was absent.
"People just didn't know what was going on initially," Jain said. She added that a message about the glitch was posted quickly on the school's parent-teacher website. "Some parents definitely got really worried," Jain said.
She said Brooks's principal, Michael Simon, sent a letter to parents yesterday.
"The letter just said that 'we found that many parents were getting these calls, so we followed our emergency lockdown plan,' " Jain said. "I think it was a way to keep a record of the students and the parents that were coming" to pick up children.
Belson said the district, which has about 4,800 students, will take steps to prevent another widespread false alarm. One of those steps, Belson said, will be posting a sign next to the phone system warning users to "make sure you shut down the database before you go to message" mode.
Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com.
