Thursday, Mar. 18 2010 6:22PM
LSHS senior develops texting, e-mail service for students
Emily Jarrett, Journal Staff
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ReprintIt’s a good thing Lee’s Summit High School senior Patrick Stoddart doesn’t take no for an answer very easily.
In the spring of his junior year, Stoddart came up with an idea to combine all the school’s calendars into one, easy to manage site. Also, with his program, reminders or cancellation notices could be sent to parents or students by a text message or e-mail alert.
He brought his idea to the LSHS administration to see if they’d like to use it.
They said no.
“They thought there was too much liability with my program since I had basically come up with it on my own. It wasn’t something they could buy from an outside source,” Stoddart explained. “After they told me no, I pretty much just said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it anyway.’”
During the summer between his junior and senior year, Stoddart developed RED, or Real-Time Events Delivered, a Web-based program that allows users to customize an alert system.
“Say you’re on the football team, or you have a kid on the team,” Stoddart said. “Who is the first person to know what practice gets cancelled? The coach. So, with RED, the coach can send out an alert telling all the students and their parents that practice is cancelled. It’s much easier than making 20 or 30 phone calls.”
The ability to customize is what really sets RED apart from any other similar program, Stoddart said. Each sport, class or club has its own “channel” so students can choose which alerts they want to receive.
“If you’re not involved in sports, you obviously aren’t going to care when a practice is cancelled,” he said. “So it really allows you to sign up for exactly what you want. You can also put a cap on the number of alerts you receive. If you don’t have a monthly texting plan, for example, you can limit it to 30 or 50 texts.”
Stoddart said he spent most of the summer developing the program and approached LSHS principal John Faulkenberry again at the beginning of the school year. This time, administration approved Stoddart’s idea and he began to sign up students and parents to receive alerts.
“RED was officially released Aug. 1 and right now we have 915 subscribers,” he said. “When I was originally told ‘no,’ one thing the administration pointed out was they didn’t think parents would want text alerts.”
According to Stoddart’s data, 85 percent of RED’s parent users signed up for text alerts, which is only 2 or 3 percent off of how many students signed up for texts.
To help get RED off the ground, Stoddart teamed up with LSHS senior Ryan Denish, who was involved in DECA, a student marketing organization, to develop a marketing and financial plan for RED.
“I thought RED was a great idea,” Denish said. “It’s so organized and very streamlined so it’s very easy to use.”
During the enrollment fair held this week, Stoddart was allowed to set up a booth for students and their parents enrolling in classes for next year to sign up for RED.
“We had a lot of parents of current eighth grade students sign up,” he said. “Which makes a lot of sense. Freshmen can’t drive so I can see how the alert system, if a club or activity is cancelled, could really come in handy.”
LSHS teacher Vicki Crisafulli is working with Stoddart to develop other ideas and uses for RED.
“Patrick told me about (RED) last spring and I thought it was a brilliant idea,” she said. “Especially with spring sports, there are so many cancellations because of the weather and a lot of times it’s hard to get the word out.”
Crisafulli said she had all the students in her personal finance class sign up for the program, so she could send alerts and reminders.
“It was great to be able to go to one site, write a message and send it to everyone without having to search for e-mail or phone numbers,” she said. “I plan on using it for my other classes too.”
Crisafulli said Stoddart has set up times for teachers who may be less technologically-savvy, to learn the RED program.
“It’s pretty easy once you start,” Denish said. “I could see this have real, practical uses in schools, churches, businesses or other organizations.”
Currently, RED works best on an iPhone or iPod Touch, Stoddart explained, but it works on any cell phone or e-mail account.
“This year was my testing year, so I’m still working out the kinks and making the program the best it can be,” Stoddart said. “I’m also working on making a Spanish language program available too.”
Stoddart said his ultimate goal is to expand the program to other schools in the district and possibly businesses.
“Obviously, this is a business so I’d like to make money with it,” he said. “But I don’t want students to have to ever pay for it. Ideally, the school would pay some sort of fee and the students would get it for free.”
For the moment though, Stoddart is focused on graduating and deciding where to attend college next fall.
“I’m really proud of RED and I hope I can turn it into a profitable business,” he said. “I guess it just shows you can really do anything if you have an idea.”
To learn more about RED, go to www.lsr7.revdel.com.
To reach Journal reporter Emily Jarrett, call 816-282-7018 or e-mail ejarrett@lsjournal.com.
