Parent Emergency Communication System (PECS)

The Parent Emergency Communication System (PECS) lets you easily contact parents during an emergency within CatapultEMS.

  1. Log in to CatapultEMS using a District Safety Team account. A Site Safety Team account may also send messages to parents if permitted by your district.
  2. From the District Command Center (or site dashboard if permitted by your district), choose Parent Emergency Communication System.
    Note: PECS is only available during an Action Alert (code red).

  3. Select the site(s) that you would like to contact. You can select multiple sites at once.
  4. Choose your communication channels.
    • Email: Send an email with basic text formattings like bold, italic, paragraphs, and lists. If contacts have languages specified, we automatically translate.
    • Text: Send a text message to cell phones. If contacts have languages specified, we automatically translate.
    • Website: Post an update to your school site if you use CatapultCMS. No automatic translation.
      • Pop-up: Generate a pop-up with an emergency update on the homepage.
      • Announcement Feed: Post information about the emergency to the announcement feeds.
    • Parent App: Notify parents via the mobile parent app if you use Catapult District Branded App (https://www.catapultk12.com/k12-app/) 
    • Emergency Website: Post to your emergency website for families to visit for updates and emergency resources.
    • Facebook: Post to your school page on Facebook. No automatic translation.
    • Twitter: Post to your school Twitter account. No automatic translation.
  5. Compose the message.
    1. Subject: title of the communication. If being sent via text, the subject is included in the text message.
    2. Script: If a pre-written script is available, select it from the dropdown and the script will fill the content area and subject field.
    3. Message: Compose the message you would like to send.  All standard features of a text editor are available
  6. Select Send Message.
    Note: Previously sent message history is available at the site level. 

Having Issues with PECS? Contact Support.

CatapultEMS Parent Emergency Communication System is available as an add-on feature. Contact your Customer Success Manager to enable this feature.