In this featured piece by School Security Leadership, the publication breaks down new Singlewire Software data on how K-12 schools actually used their critical communication systems during the 2025-26 school year. The analysis covers more than 19.5 million notifications from over 1,700 organizations representing about 16,000 schools on the Singlewire InformaCast platform, and it separates everyday operations from emergencies, real events from drills, and patterns by time, day, and district size. The result is a detailed, system-of-record look showing that routine communication makes up the vast majority of activity — and that this daily use is what prepares schools to respond when a real emergency happens.
Key Takeaways
- Everyday operations dominate: of more than 19.5 million notifications, 92% were routine operational messages and only 8% were emergencies, with automated bell schedules alone making up 60% of all communication.
- Real emergencies and drills don’t look alike: among the five Standard Response Protocol actions, Lockdown drove 72.4% of real-world emergency messages, far ahead of Evacuate and Shelter at 7.5% each — but in drills the mix was more balanced, with Lockdown at 40.9% and Evacuate at 37.7%, a gap worth noting when planning practice.
- Emergency communication peaks with the school day: 80% happened between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m., with the busiest single hour from 8 to 9 a.m., when schools sent more than 160,000 emergency notifications over the year.
- Incidents don’t keep school hours: schools sent about 52,000 emergency messages on weekends, and overnight volume rose to roughly 15,000 per hour between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m., underscoring the need for round-the-clock coverage.
- Reliable reach depends on layering channels: 85.9% of schools used on-premises devices, 76.7% email, 56.5% mobile app push, and 53.1% text, pairing tools that reach people in the building with ones that follow them out the door.
Original Story
A new analysis of K-12 communication activity offers a look at how schools used critical communication systems during the 2025-26 school year.
Singlewire Software analyzed more than 19.5 million notifications from more than 1,700 K-12 organizations representing approximately 16,000 schools. The data covers messages sent through the company’s InformaCast platform between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026.
The report distinguishes between notifications sent and device activations, or the individual endpoints that received those messages. Singlewire also notes that its figures represent messages, not individual incidents. One incident may generate multiple messages, meaning the data reflects communication volume rather than the number of times a particular type of emergency occurred.