I confess that while I was diligent about looking for notices in my children’s knapsacks when they were in elementary school, my attention slipped as they aged.

By middle school, I didn’t want to know what was in that pack (squished, decaying lunches and dirty socks) even if they had let me look.

I think these new automated methods of reaching parents – automated calling systems, mass emails – have their advantages.

Take Yonkers, which installed a telecommunication system in June. They’ve used it to call parents at every public school since the beginning of September with automated messages from the superintendent, principals and assistant principals, and in some cases from the school Parent Teachers Associations.

School Superintendent Bernie Pierorazio says it closes the “backpack gap” between the notices that get sent home and the info that actually reaches parents.

Now Yonkers is using the phone to do a survey of the district’s policy on school uniforms – a policy more honored in the breach than the observance, as my colleague David Wilson described.

There’s a lot more to communicating with the community these days than the traditional district calendar.

Many districts send out mass emails. That’s very handy for seeing at a glance what’s coming up and for getting a feel for what’s going on.

Everyone has a website – though some are easier to navigate and more informative than others.

I wonder, though, do people miss the handouts? Having them to stick up on the refrigerator certainly helped me remember dates and obligations.