By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

BUCKFIELD – When it snowed on a school day, Tina Veinott spent a lot of time waiting for SAD 39 to scroll across her TV screen.

Sometimes the mother of six caught her cancellation jammed among a hundred others. Sometimes she missed it.

“A few times I put my kids out to catch the bus,” said Veinott, who currently has three children in the school system.

But this year, all Veinott has to do is answer her phone – or check e-mail, a PDA or pager – and a computer will tell her school is closed.

“I love it,” she said. “I don’t even have to turn the TV on.”

SAD 39, which includes Buckfield, Hartford and Sumner, is piloting the instant alert system for Honeywell, a technology and manufacturing company based in New Jersey. Although more than 520 schools use the computer program nationwide, Waterboro-area’s SAD 57 is the only other Maine school district to have it.

School officials log on to a secure Honeywell Web site to notify parents and staff members about delays, closures and early dismissals. Within 15 minutes, the program can call 24,000 people and send text messages to another 96,000.

SAD 39 has about 630 students.

Officials there have used the system about a half-dozen times this year. Most were emergency alerts based on the weather. One told elementary school parents about a schedule change, detailing when buses would pick up students and when lunch would be.

“I love it. It’s convenient. Keep it coming,” said Tanya Veinott, Tina Veinott’s daughter. Tanya’s 6-year-old son attends Hartford-Sumner Elementary School.

Using the parent section of the Honeywell Web site, Tanya Veinott added her e-mail address and cell phone number to the alert system, allowing her to get emergency messages at work or on the road. She and other parents can also sign up to receive less urgent messages, such as a reminder about a school play.

“I’d be interested in that. My daughter doesn’t tell me a lot of these things,” said Sandra Freve, who adores the emergency alerts.

But not everyone was thrilled when the first alert went out this year. It called parents at 5:30 in the morning. For a few families, that was too early.

Officials can delay alerts so parents don’t receive them so early. Or parents can change their contact information so they don’t receive the calls at home at all.

Still, Superintendent Richard Colpitts said, “A lot of parents seem to like it because they can roll over, go back to sleep and not wake up their kids.”

SAD 39 paid $2,000 to use the emergency alert system for a year. The money came from federal funding for technology.

Eventually, SAD 39 will be able to modify the system so it contacts very small groups of parents, allowing a teacher to remind parents about a classroom field trip or allowing a coach to tell players that practice has been canceled.

“I’ve been very excited about the possibilities,” Colpitts said.