Meeting a Diverse Community with a Modern Communication Platform
Taunton Public Schools (MA)
Challenge
Taunton Public Schools had been using an SIS for school-home communication—but the pandemic showed that they needed a better solution for engaging with a community where families speak 33 different languages.
Solution
Networking with other schools first led Taunton Public Schools to adopt Remind Hub. After Remind’s acquisition by ParentSquare, the district seized the opportunity to transition to the ParentSquare platform—a decision that has since proven to be one of its best for enhancing school-home communication.
Results
Since moving to ParentSquare, the district has achieved a 99% contactability rate across its 13 school sites. In addition to using the unified platform for all school-home communications throughout the district, including real-time translation for all families, staff are also leveraging data analytics, paperless workflows, and design features to enhance engagement and save time and money.
Meeting a Diverse Community with a Modern Communication Platform
Five years ago, Taunton Public Schools was using its own student information system (SIS) to send text messages and automated calls. But when the district found itself in the middle of a global pandemic, its leaders knew that they needed a more modern platform to communicate and engage with families—especially in a linguistically diverse community where over 30 languages are spoken at home.
Name
Taunton Public Schools
Type
District of 13 Schools
Students
8,400
Location
Taunton, MA
For Superintendent John Cabral, facilitating quick and efficient communication in the midst of constant change was the top priority. However, a new communication platform also had to meet several other requirements. Above all, it needed to be able to support all communications within the district, including for athletic teams, clubs, and other extracurricular activities.
“We wanted to make sure everyone was using one platform consistently throughout the school system,” says Cabral. The reason was twofold: Along with streamlining workflows and tools, consolidating systems would allow the district to archive all communications and access them later if needed. As a measure of protection, this would help Taunton Public Schools safeguard communication for staff and students alike.
To address these issues, the district turned to Remind Hub. The platform frequently came up within Cabral’s close network as an option for modernizing communication, and the district decided to “jump onboard,” he says.
Transitioning to ParentSquare to Deepen Engagement
After several years of using Remind Hub, Cabral learned that Remind was being acquired by ParentSquare. With new options now available for transitioning from Hub to ParentSquare, Taunton Public Schools made the decision to transfer all district communications to ParentSquare’s unified platform for school-home communications.
Cost Savings With Built-in Features
Since migrating to ParentSquare, the Taunton Public Schools team has embraced the platform’s features for enhancing engagement and streamlining workflows. As a former principal, Cabral says that ParentSquare’s Secure Documents feature has helped reduce the amount of effort it takes to disseminate high school accountability tests for nearly 3,000 students.
“Not having to use the traditional interoffice mail or snail mail creates significant cost savings because we can securely email parents their child’s state assessments and other forms,” he says. “The high school is already doing that, and now our middle school principals are considering how to leverage those resources to be more efficient.”
Communications Coordinator Cynthia Johnson uses ParentSquare’s Studio Editor newsletter designer to create visually appealing communications, and she also relies on the platform’s scheduling feature and advanced data insights to save time and improve efficiency. “I like the whole ‘set it and forget it’ process and how much data and analytics we’re able to pull from the system and use,” she says.
For example, ParentSquare’s dashboard notification history helps her see when to use targeted Smart Alerts for parent and guardian communication versus sending correspondence to the entire school. “We’re really starting to drill down and utilize those specific tools to send the right messages to the right audience at the right time,” says Johnson.
“Not having to use the traditional interoffice mail or snail mail creates significant cost savings because we can securely email parents their child’s state assessments and other forms.”
John Cabral
Superintendent
Real-time Translation Backed by Powerful Data Analytics
Along with supporting real-time translation into families’ preferred languages, the ParentSquare platform provides analytics and features that give the district confidence that messages are being translated accurately and reaching their intended recipients. For Cabral, whose own first language is Portuguese, these features are what he calls a “game changer” for urban communities like Taunton.
“There’s an accountability factor in that we always know when our messages are received,” says Cabral. “Now, we know when someone hasn’t received our messages, and we can straighten it out quickly, in the language that the recipient speaks.”
Johnson agrees, having recently demonstrated the platform’s text-to-voice option using the Alerts feature to a team of principals and administrators. “I selected Portuguese as many in the room are first generation. Multiple administrators were really impressed by the quality of the translation and the audio. One even said, ‘It sounds just like my dad!’”
Maximizing Platform Capabilities for Long-term Success
With ParentSquare, Taunton Public Schools has reached 99% contactability across the 8,400 students it serves, with two of its schools already at 100% contactability. Johnson is currently on a mission to achieve 100% contactability districtwide and is working with principals to get every student family into the system.
Cabral is pleased with these numbers and says the district continues to “peel back the onion” and discover even more features that ParentSquare provides. As the district maximizes the platform’s capabilities, Cabral anticipates that they may eventually consolidate tools and reduce costs even further by eliminating other vendors.
“ParentSquare is a one-stop shop—from the newsletters to the website to everything in between,” says Cabral. “I think the platform has really done a great job of addressing school systems’ needs. As parents themselves, its founders saw a need and are holding true to their values when it comes to what it means to be part of ParentSquare. It’s so much more than just a product.”
Cabral advises other superintendents, principals, and district leaders to take advantage of the professional development that vendors like ParentSquare offer. “Along with the education itself, you’ll also learn a lot by networking with the other communications coordinators and public relations staff who are using it,” he says. “That’s where the real power lies.”
