What Makes Great School-to-Home Comms: A CTO Perspective

Last month, we heard from three California-based CTOS (you can watch here!). If your district or school is in the process of transitioning back to in-person learning, here are 5 things 📝 we learned that may help with your plans!

1. Go the Extra Mile to Ensure School-Home Communications Are Equitable
2. Find the Balance Between “Too Much” and “Not Enough”
3. Ensure Teachers Communications Maintain Student Privacy
4. Have the Right Tools to Handle COVID-19 Communications & Workflows
5. If You Introduce New Technology, Roll It Out Strategically

School closures, adapted learning scenarios, language barriers, unstable housing situations, and more have presented a slew of challenges to parents—making it more difficult than ever for districts to connect with families. Districts have to find new ways to reach families and bridge the equity gap as best they can. Here are a few ways to ensure equitable school-home communications.

• Track and Improve Parent “Contactability:” Do you have a platform in place that measures who you are and are not reaching? Do you quickly review and fix contact details for any failed texts or emails? If you don’t, then it may be time to evaluate your communications strategy to ensure you’re reaching 100% of families (or close to it).

• Go Beyond Digital Communications: Does your district need boots on the ground to physically visit with the families who are not engaging with your communications? Or is there one form of communication they prefer over others? These are important questions to consider when parents are not engaging with your school-home comms.

• Address Language Barriers: Do you have translation tools and bilingual staff on hand? For districts with English Language Learner (ELL) populations, it’s essential to have a system in place to overcome any language barriers and promote equity among students and families.

• Set Up a Communications Plan: A great example of a clear communications plan designed to reach all families comes from Santa Barbara Unified School District. They regularly monitor their ParentSquare dashboard to track the percentage of families that are not contactable or engaged and take action to reach out. For families with Spanish as their preferred language, the Family Engagement Unit calls families in Spanish, to make sure they are in the loop.

Almost every district has difficulty finding a good balance between over-communicating and not communicating enough with parents. The CTOs explained that having a unified communications platform such as ParentSquare makes communications more manageable for families. Here are some of the reasons why:

• Streamlined Communications: A unified platform removes the need for parents to manage different district emails, social media, classroom apps, payment systems, survey platforms, etc., and try to remember where to go to communicate or complete a task.

• Customizable Notification Settings: ParentSquare allows parents to personalize how they receive notifications (text, email, and/or push notification). This ensures parents are communicated with in the way that works for them, eliminating frustration and message fatigue.

• Dashboard with Analytics: Administrators can gauge what’s working and what’s not working, allowing schools to adapt communication so that it works best for your families’ preferences.

Whether you’re remote or on-site, the CTOs shared that there’s always a need to ensure network security and student privacy, especially for classroom communications. Tech tools used within the school community should fully comply with security and privacy policies.

• Communications Must Be Secure: That means teachers (and staff) should not share their personal cell phone numbers for student-related communications or message students’ personal cell phones. Free classroom apps can be problematic, as they may expose personal contact details and could allow non-authorized guardians or parents access to student information.

• Simplify Management of Sign-Ons and Users: People with old credentials can jeopardize security, and no district wants to deal with the fallout. Make sure you don’t leave people with access to information when they don’t need it anymore. Single sign-on (SSO) is an important piece of managing that process, so CTOs or admins have fewer places to go to manage users when they leave.

• Implement a Communications Platform that Protects Both Students and Teachers: The CTOs appreciated StudentSquare, which protects both students and teachers with administrative oversight and an electronic paper trail. Teachers have embraced this capability as an added layer of security if any questions or concerns arise concerning student communication. In fact, the security features are so powerful, that many schools require that coaches and staff only use StudentSquare in order to protect all parties.

Note: StudentSquare is the student-version of ParentSquare, designed so that high school and middle school students can easily communicate and engage with their teachers.

Keeping school communities healthy is the most important thing right now. The CTOs touched on very specific needs stemming from the pandemic that many districts may be dealing with as well.

• Be Prepared & Have the Right Tools to Address Exposures: From a legal perspective, districts have to make sure the right people are notified in the case of an on-campus COVID-19 exposure. There is also a huge need for the capability to carry out daily health screenings and communicate home to parents when exposures happen. Evaluate if your district has the right tools in place to monitor exposures and quickly communicate with staff, students, and families if needed.

• Use Targeted Messaging: When an exposure happens, everyone who was exposed must be contacted. Santa Rosa City Schools suggested using a unified communications platform like ParentSquare which allows for targeted messaging to anyone who has been in contact with a COVID positive person while on-campus.

Many districts that are transitioning back to in-person instruction are utilizing ParentSquare’s Health Screening forms. With this feature, parents, staff, and students can easily submit a health screening form that indicates if they are exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19.

If your district does introduce new tools to staff, here’s how the CTOs recommend you do it:

• Don’t Mandate a Platform: Instead, offer it to staff and educators, stressing the benefits they’ll receive. Once the “innovators and early adopters” begin using a new tool and discover they love it, they’ll naturally promote it to their coworkers—not because they had to, but because they wanted to!

• Offer Training and Support: Staff will have more success with the adoption of a new technology tool if you offer training on the product and are available to answer questions.

• Have Some Fun: Show staff how fun it can be to use new technology, like ParentSquare, with features like posts, social share, and videos.

Change management, especially when it involves adopting new technology, can be difficult for a lot of people. Beyond that, with the additional challenges presented during the last year, educators have enough to manage. It’s understandable that some could be apprehensive about implementing a new school-home communications tool. However, CTOs can support staff by explaining exactly how technology can benefit them and make their jobs (and lives) easier!

We hope you find these tips helpful and actionable. Is there anything else you’d add? We’d love to hear from you!