Jill Ryan Photo
If you have kids in a New Haven Public School, you probably get a lot of phone calls from Daniel Diaz.
The kids, at least, are often happy when he calls.
Diaz’s is the voice that lets families knows about snow days and other school cancelations, along with other breaking public education news.
“Good Evening New Haven Public School parents,” Diaz said into the phone one recent weekday, from his office on Meadow Street. He was voicing a message about a workshop that was canceled because of an upcoming holiday.
Diaz came to New Haven from Puerto Rico with his parents when he was 13. With degrees in economics and marketing, he initially worked for utility companies but always wanted to work for the school district. When he turned 40, he made the move, and he is now the district’s liaison to parents. (He also co-founded the community organization ARTE INc., for which he received an award last month from Junta for Progressive Action.)
Diaz has been sending out the school system’s recorded messages for 14 years. He records them with little fanfare at a land line phone at his desk, in a shared open room with his co-workers.
There’s no fancy equipment or sound proofing. He doesn’t practice or think much about his delivery, and he hasn’t had voice training.
But when you listen to the messages, he commands your attention. He has a deep voice, with a Puerto Rican accent. He speaks slowly and deliberately, with dramatic pauses.
“This is just coming out of the heart,” he said.
“Sometimes [people] say ‘Oh we make so much fun of your accent,’” he said. “I’m like, it’s OK. If the kids are laughing, we got the job done.”
His distinct voice also gets him recognized outside of work.
“I cannot commit a crime and talk because everybody recognizes my voice,” he said.
“I’ve been in places, like in Stop and Shop, and the minute I speak, people will go, “You’re the message guy!’”
After Diaz records the call, the audio is uploaded to his computer where he can send it to a database of tens of thousands of parents. His records show that a recent call reached 89 percent of them.
“Any marketer would be like ‘Oh my God!’ Because most marketers are hoping for 10 percent. We have a captive audience of 89 percent. You cannot go wrong,” he said.
But reaching 89 percent doesn’t mean everyone is listening to the automated messages. Many are delivered right at 6 p.m., when parents may be putting dinner on the table.
“I know some parents sometimes get upset because they get a lot of calls all the time,” he said. “I always tell parents, ‘If you don’t like it just don’t listen to it, because the next [call] might be the one that is really the one that you need.’”
The calls that parents would not want to miss pertain to emergencies, including school lockdowns.
“The hardest call to make is when you have a lockdown because of police activity in the area,” he said. “Because you put yourself in the parents’ shoes. So now they’re receiving a call, but there’s nothing the parents can do… you’re only hearing and trusting my voice that [the children] are OK.”
He hasn’t had to report a situation where there was an emergency and kids were not OK, he said. “Thank God, knock on wood.”
Diaz’ calls are also crucial when there’s a snow day, of course.
“When there is going to be snow the next day, I start getting calls from kids that I know: ‘Are we going to have school tomorrow?’”
He doesn’t tell them.
“Even though I might know, I’m not going to tell them. They gotta wait for my message.”
And those waiting for the snow day and other messages from Daniel Diaz this year will not include any kids of his own. Diaz said he and his spouse decided not to have biological children. He already has enough kids. “I have 22,000 kids,” he said “And I love them all.”