Patent ID: 8180274

Claim:
A method of sending an emergency notification using student information, comprising: storing communication data of a parent or legal guardian for each one of a plurality of students; associating at least one of a plurality of group identifiers with the stored communication data for each of the plurality of students, wherein each of the group identifiers identifies a group of students; storing a plurality of sender identifiers, wherein each sender identifier identifies a particular sender of student information; associating with each sender identifier at least one of the plurality of group identifiers, wherein each of the group identifiers associated with a particular sender identifier identifies a group for which the particular sender identified by the particular sender identifier is authorized to send student information; receiving a sender identifier via a user input and, in response thereto, retrieving all of the group identifiers associated with the received sender identifier; and communicating student information to a parent or legal guardian of all particular students having a group identifier associated therewith that is also a group identifier that is associated with the received sender identifier using the communication data of a parent or legal guardian stored for the particular student; wherein fewer than all members of a group are authorized to send the emergency notification to other members of the group; and wherein at least some of the plurality of sender identifiers are not associated with at least some of the plurality of group identifiers.