Key factors:
Our district is extremely various, with 33 languages throughout our 13 colleges, in response to our newest house language survey information. Once we have been in the midst of the pandemic and every thing in schooling was turned on its head, we realized that we would have liked a greater solution to talk with mother and father and caregivers rapidly and effectively.
Up till that time, we relied solely on our scholar data system to ship out textual content messages and automatic calls. We wished to centralize that course of, convey our golf equipment and athletics onto one platform, and be sure that it complied with the appropriate use coverage that everybody indicators off on every year.
In the course of the pandemic, plenty of superintendents talked and one of many platforms mentioned brazenly and extensively inside our community was Remind Hub, so we jumped on board. When ParentSquare acquired Remind, we seized the chance emigrate to the ParentSquare platform. This transition has confirmed to be the most effective selections our district has made to boost school-home communications.
Listed here are six methods we’re utilizing that platform to spice up district engagement:
1. Actual-time language translation. The platform’s translation perform provides us full confidence that our incoming and outgoing messages are being translated precisely. Portuguese-speaking members of our group have been shocked by how correct and natural-sounding the automated voice messages are.
2. Improved accountability. There’s additionally an accountability issue inbuilt. We all the time know when our messages are acquired. Now, if somebody doesn’t obtain the message, we all know it, and we will straighten it out rapidly within the language that the recipient speaks.
3. Entry to information, metrics and analytics. The answer’s dashboard notification historical past helps us distribute the proper variety of communications–like figuring out when to make use of focused Good Alerts for father or mother and guardian communication–versus sending correspondence to all the faculty. We’re actually beginning to drill down and make the most of these particular instruments to ship the proper messages to the proper viewers on the proper time.
4. Engaging, participating correspondence simplified. Along with the graceful transition from our unique communications platform to our present one, we actually just like the platform’s easy-to-use Studio Editor publication designer, which helps us create visually-appealing communications. It additionally gives wealthy formatting instruments and a scheduling characteristic that helps a “set it and overlook it” course of. This permits us to shift our focus in direction of different work versus worrying about whether or not a message was despatched and acquired.
5. Straightforward dissemination of knowledge. The Safe Paperwork characteristic that’s obtainable on our platform takes the effort and time out of disseminating highschool accountability checks for almost 3,000 college students. Not having to make use of the normal interoffice mail or snail mail creates important price financial savings. We are able to securely e mail mother and father their baby’s state assessments and different types. The highschool is already doing that and now our center and elementary faculty principals are contemplating learn how to leverage Safe Paperwork to be extra environment friendly.
6. Excessive contactability charges. Our district is presently at 99 p.c contactability throughout the 8,400 college students we serve and two of our colleges are at 100% contactability. We’re presently on a mission to realize 100% districtwide and are working with principals to get each scholar’s household into the system. General, our district is de facto happy with the excessive charges of contactability we’re seeing and we proceed to “peel again the onion” and uncover much more of the platform’s options.
Maximizing platform capabilities for long-term success
As we proceed to discover and optimize the capabilities of our unified school-home communications platform, we anticipate that we might finally consolidate instruments and cut back our prices even additional by eliminating different distributors. Our platform actually is a one-stop store–from the newsletters to Safe Paperwork to every thing in between.
As classroom lecturers, principals, and superintendents, we now have lots coming at us daily. Our plates don’t get smaller; they solely develop, and time is the one factor we will’t get extra of. Our communications and engagement platform helps us maximize that restricted useful resource.
