This year ParentSquare grew to over 100 employees serving over 6.5M students, and during this growth something remarkable happened. We built an energy in the company that is inviting for both talent and for ideas. It is an environment that supports an amazing work culture, #wewintogether, and a commitment to our schools that is remarkably inspiring.
I believe the reason this atmosphere is amplified is because of the enthusiasm we find in our schools, as they collaborate with us and encourage us to stretch beyond. The work we do together in connecting with families has never been more meaningful than it is for students in today’s always-on digital world.
Thank you for everything you do for your school communities. I’d like to share how we’ve supported schools and districts this year. 🙂
We are so grateful for another year of growth for ParentSquare. This year our team gathered for our very first company retreat, and it meant so much to all of us to learn and grow together in person.
I’d like to share some of our greatest accomplishments with you:
Grew our leadership team with our Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Financial Officer, VP of Business Development, VP of Security and Compliance, and General Counsel.
- Partnered with MyVRSpot to enhance video messaging in the platform.
- Received an Excellence in Equity Award, based on achievement in supporting equitable opportunity and outcomes for all educators and learners.
- Earned Level IV Certification for alignment with standards of Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
- Continued our commitment to safeguarding student data by joining Access 4 Learning’s Student Data Privacy Consortium.
One of our core values is that we are Champions for our Customers.
We are always thinking about how we can improve our product to make the experience better for ParentSquare users.
Here are some of our biggest updates this year:
- Search Enhancements to make it easier to find what you need, including Advanced Post Search and Direct Messaging Search.
- Security Updates to help protect ParentSquare communities. Highlights include: Password Monitor to detect breached passwords, unlinking merged accounts, and secure sessions to manage who’s accessing your account.
- Data Sync Improvements for under-the-hood magic. Users can now visit the Sync History Dashboard, use school terms for easier rollover, and sync on demand.
- Enhancements to Auto Notices for more automation.
- Several other enhancements, including Auto Save for posts, more options to Manage Groups, Translation Enhancements, and Direct Message Enhancements.
We’re lucky to serve K12 leaders across the US because you have so many valuable insights and tips!
This year we’ve worked with schools and districts to create best practice guides, webinars, and resources — using educator experiences to guide us.
- The Complete District Communications Playbook: Examples, tools, and practical solutions to help improve communications.
- Part 1: Elevating your District’s Brand
- Part 2: Forming a Communications Strategic Plan
- Stay tuned for Parts 3 & 4 coming next year!
- Best Practice Guide – Engaging the Hardest-to-Reach Families: Strategies for overcoming five common barriers to engagement.
- Stories on how districts are transforming school-home communications: Showcasing districts’ success growing parent engagement and connecting with every family.
- Checklist: What to Consider to Start the Year Off Strong & Engage All Families: Benchmark your communications and ensure you are set up for successful family engagement.
- How to Meet School Technology Needs While Protecting Security & Privacy: Several K12 district IT leaders shared how they manage the risk of data or privacy breaches.
We are grateful that we are able to look forward to another year at ParentSquare.
We can’t wait to get started on some exciting updates after some time to rejuvenate and spend time with friends and family.
- Permissions: Enhancements to provide improved oversight and flexibility for both user and role based permissions.
- Direct Messaging: Ability to reply to a message via email, see who has viewed a message in the application, and improved Office Hours.
- Data Sync Management: More oversight and control over thresholds and the ability to override in certain scenarios.
- Virtual Phone: School and district staff can make phone calls to the parent’s cellphone or landline from within ParentSquare without showing personal phone numbers. Powerful dashboards help track family engagement.
- Forms and Permission Slips: New ways to share forms outside of posts and improved digital signature features.
Just as we reflected on the highlights of the year for ParentSquare, I invite you to do the same for yourself and discuss in your team or your family. It gave me an idea: with my daughter in college now and my son a senior at high school, our agreed upon family resolution (yay!!) is to come together via Zoom on the last day of each month, and discuss highlights and lowlights of the month.
We hope you had a wonderful year, and here’s to another great year of connecting in 2023! ❤️
With gratitude from Santa Barbara, CA
Anu
Founder, ParentSquare
