IN - Listing snafu by Ameritech leaves schools a little hung up

By R. Joseph Gelarden

Indianapolis Star

December 9, 2000

MOORESVILLE, Ind. -- For the past six weeks, Assistant Superintendent Curtis Freeman has gone back and forth with Ameritech.

And it has nothing to do with faulty phone service.

When Ameritech published this year's phone book, the company deleted Mooresville Consolidated Schools Corp.'s numbers for all seven schools and the administrative offices.

For a while, when parents of the 4,200 students or relatives of the 550 employees called Ameritech directory assistance, they were told the schools had nonpublished numbers.

Directory assistance now will give out the numbers.

Freeman said he has been calling Ameritech for an answer, but so far all he has gotten is a promise to call him back.

"It is frustrating. Some of their people act like we are from the moon. I know it is such a big organization they have trouble tracing things down and I don't want to sound unprofessional, but . . ., " he said.

Freeman's plight to get the problem fixed has sent him from department to department to get an answer.

He said he was told to call the business office to see why the phone numbers were not published. The business office told him the computer showed the numbers were published. He was told to call the directory people.

The directory people said their computer showed the school's numbers were on the nonpublished list.

When Freeman asked that the numbers be listed as published, he was told he would have to call the business office to make that change.

Ameritech spokesman Mike Marker admitted there is a problem, but he said he wants the public to know that the Ameritech directory has historically maintained an accuracy rate of better than 99 percent.

When asked for reasons that the Mooresville schools numbers were omitted from the phone book and put on the nonpublished list for directory assistance, Marker said, "We believe it was human error."

Freeman agrees with that theory.

"Someone hit a button, and it went blippety-deblip and it was gone," he said.

http://www.starnews.com/news/articles/phones1209.html

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), December 10, 2000