Getting in touch with parents during a crisis—or even for regular updates or reminders!—can feel like you’re back in the 1800s, praying that your Pony Express courier hasn’t been trampled by stampeding bison herds. Thankfully, messages have come a long way in the past 200 years. We’ve borrowed some app suggestions from The Guardian and discovered more to give you a few dynamite tools to upgrade your parent communications.
ClassDoJo
This app not only provides parents with notes on classwork and reminders about project deadlines, but also helps relay teacher observations about student behavior to both administrators and families. A menu of “good samaritan” behaviors is available for the teacher to select and showcase good behavior. From there, the parents can be kept abreast of both the academic and social progress of their child.
Ringya
Ringya is great for those who need to communicate with large groups of people, whether it’s teams of students or committees of parents. The app can send voice messages, texts, and emails to anyone in the sender’s designated group—including those not signed up with the service. The recipients don’t even need a smartphone to get your messages! Regular "analog" phones without data access can still receive messages. Directories can be created for different groups (parents, clubs, classes, etc.) and shared with the people who need them.
Pupil Asset Parents
This Pupil Asset add-on lets parents review all sorts of student information—from attendance to academic progress—in one central, color-coded place. The teachers have direct control over what information is included or explained, rather than relying on a central administrator to handle the program for them.
Remind
If your school’s community is glued to its smartphones, Remind might be the app for you. It works via a phone's texting services, allowing for mass texts to be sent for free. The app also masks the telephone numbers within the message, increasing privacy for parents who don’t want their personal contact information shared beyond their child's teacher. Photos, pdfs, and Word documents can be attached. As The Guardian points out, though, the conversation’s only one-sided—parents have no way of responding to text messages sent through this app.
What does your school use to keep in touch with its parents? Share your resources with your fellow School Heads in the comment section below!
Additional ISM resources:
ISM Monthly Update for Admission Officers Vol. 13 No. 6 Re-enrollment Communication 101
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 35 No. 3 The Growing Importance of Technology in Parent Communications
I&P Vol. 40 No. 2 Consolidate and Coordinate Your Parent Communications
