DCentric

December 17, 2010 | 11:32 AM | By Anna

Sorry, Ron Brown Middle School. Wrong Number.

FILED UNDER: Education, Schools

• Comments Off
• Tweet
• Permalink

I have a problem. Relative to everything else in my life, it’s minor, but it’s still frustrating.

Every day, at least once, but often twice, I get a phone call from a local phone number. It’s a recorded message with no information on how to respond, which is what compounds my frustration.

“Hello, Brown family. There is no aftercare today. Please ensure that your children are picked up promptly after school.”

Except…I don’t have children, unless we count my puppy. And she is home-schooled. I’m also so clueless that until this week, I thought they were trying to reach a D.C. public school parent named Brown– until I realized that DCPS probably doesn’t have the resources to record every parents’ name, for precious, individualized robo-calls. “A-ha!”, I thought. The SCHOOL is named “Brown”!

I’ve had the same phone number for 12 years, ever since I moved to this city. I’m aware that because of this and a few other factors, the proclivity for me to get random phone calls is high, so I try to be patient. At the same time, I’m concerned that there’s a parent out there who isn’t getting critically important information, that will affect their kid’s future; two weeks ago, one of the messages was about attendance and needing to speak to a teacher or administrator, immediately. Was my mistakenly-attributed child cutting school? And more depressing than that– why hadn’t this parent realized that they had provided an incorrect phone number? Didn’t they realize that they weren’t getting updates? Did they…not care?

Two days ago, I started searching various combinations of “Brown” “School” and “D.C.” and this is what I came up with: Ron Brown Middle School in Northeast. Finally! A way to solve this annoying problem, which fills my voicemail with useless information (while depriving a parent of alerts they need to receive). I dialed my beleaguered cell phone.

“G’mornin’ Ron Brown”

“Um, hello. I apologize in advance if I’m not speaking with the right person for this, but I have a rather odd problem. Your school keeps calling my cell phone with recorded messages that are meant for one of your parents. I’m worried that they are not hearing what they need to and I’ll admit, it’s annoying. Wait, have I even called the right school? This says you are a Middle school.”

“We are.”

“The calls are often about aftercare. Perhaps I have the wrong ‘Brown’? Do you have any advice about where I should call?”

“No. We have aftercare, though.”

“For Middle school students?!”

“No. We have elementary, too.”

“Oh. Well then maybe this is the right number… could you take me off your list, please?”

“Hmmph! Some parent gave us the wrong number. It’s not us. It’s them.”

“Right, but aren’t you worried that they’re not hearing about aftercare and whatever else you tell me about every day? Some of the messages sound important.”

“If they wanted to hear, they shoulda given the right number!”

“Okay…but…”

“I can’t tell you about the parent or the child! That’s private information!”

“I’m…I’m not asking about either of those two things. I just want my number removed from the phone list, if possible. If you’re not worried about the parent being out of the loop, I won’t mention that again–”

“If they want to be in a loop, they shoulda given us the right phone number!”

“Well, anyway, could you please take my number off the list?”

“Oh, no…I can’t do that–”

“WHAT? Why not??”

“I have no way of getting in that list unless I know which child we calling for– and I can’t tell you that!”

“That…doesn’t…even…make sense? I just want to have my number taken off your list, I promise, I do not want any information about anyone, especially a child. That’s creepy. And irrelevant to my mission. Which is to stop these robocalls.”

“Robo-WHAT?”

“Nothing. If I don’t want information, can you take me off the list?”

“I can’t do that. I can’t do that.”

“Well, would you be kind enough to direct me to someone who can?”

“We don’t handle that here. You gonna have to call downtown.”

“I’d have to call downtown for an errant phone call that originates from your school?”

“We don’t handle any of it.”

“It’s a lot of calls. It’s annoying. I am surprised there isn’t a better way to access or update your information.”

“We don’t handle it.”

“Right, thanks.”

I was stunned. Then I was depressed, for the student whose future was slowly being derailed, the parent who made a typo, but didn’t deserve to be left in the dark about their child and for everyone who had to deal with such unproductive, confusing employees. The best was yet to come, though. And by best, I mean worst. Yesterday, I received a flurry of calls, inspired by the flurries of snow. And today, after taking cough medicine with codeine in the wee hours of the morning, my phone exploded at 7am, sharp!

“HELLO, BROWN FAMILY!”

Sigh. I really needed that extra hour of sleep. By the time I drifted off again, I was groggy…and missed my alarm. The doorbell woke me up, a full hour late.

“Maintenance!” Oh, right. Today is the day they are ripping out my water heater and replacing it. I was supposed to be up, showering, brushing my teeth, brewing coffee– basically using the water in my apartment like I’d never see it again, before they shut it off for the day.

“Curse you, Brown family!”, I muttered to myself. Wait. My mistake. “Curse you, Brown school!” What an unlovely way to start the day. I made the contractors wait for 10 minutes while I filled my water pitcher, my teapot and fired up the old Oral-B. When they came in, they made small talk and one of them mentioned that they had just received a message about their child’s school.

“Wait, was it a recorded message?”

“Yes. They’re really handy. I know when the school’s closing early, things like that.”

I told him about my saga and he shook his head. “It’s easy to change that stuff. We just did it when the wife got a new number. I’m not tryin’ to say that the person was lazy but…sounds like they weren’t tryin’ to do their job.”

That did it. With this confirmation in mind, I called Ron Brown back.

“Good morning, Ron Brown, how can I help you?”

“You know those automated calls you make to parents?”

“Yes?”

“Well I get those, even though I don’–”

“Are we calling a wrong number? Sorry. What is the number? I will try and remove it.”

“Wow, thanks! When I called a few days ago, they said you couldn’t do that…”

“I’m not exactly sure how to do it, but I’m pretty sure we can. I mean, people change their number all the time. I’ll see what I can do.”

I hung up, feeling much better about D.C.’s public schools, until I remembered the parent they had mistaken me for– who may not have even noticed that they weren’t in touch with their child’s school. Even the best school teachers and administrators are no substitute for an engaged parent. I tried to be optimistic; maybe that parent was just as frustrated as I was, and not having much luck. For the sake of my non-existent “child”, I hoped so.