Text message glitch gives Dundee High School parents a Friday fright

A computer glitch saw Dundee High parents sent a message reporting that their child had not attended school this morning.

The school sent out a flood of texts shortly after 10.30am, leading to momentary concern for many parents and guardians.

The messages urged them to call Dundee High to discuss the reason for their children’s absence.

Had they been correct, Dundee High’s entire senior school around 650 pupils would have been absent.

A first text said: “Your child has been marked absent at registration today. Please call the school to confirm. Many thanks.”

Within minutes, however, the school had realised that something was amiss and a second text message put minds at rest.

It read: “Please ignore the previous text. This was a computer error. Apologies.”

The school said it commonly sent out text messages to parents when a pupil is absent without explanation and blamed an “administrative error” for the volume of texts.

It’s understood that where one text was to have been sent, the message was in fact delivered to all parents of pupils in the senior school.

Dundee High said the error had been spotted and a second message sent out within six minutes.