This summer, over 3,500 administrators and staff grabbed their bug spray, tents, and lanterns and joined us for (virtual) ParentSquare Summer Camp – a five day customized Summer Camp experience with professional development activities and ParentSquare training.
The goal of Summer Camp is to help administrators and staff prepare for back to school and level up their ParentSquare skills by learning how to utilize its core features and training resources.
Read on for some of the highlights from Summer Camp 2022, including the topics that were covered, feedback from campers, and a customer spotlight.
What Activities Did Campers Do?
Campers completed four days of asynchronous content, delivered directly to their inbox each morning. Summer Camp featured training videos on ParentSquare features, back-to-school tips, and tasks to complete within the platform. Plus, campers “gathered around the campfire” via Zoom on the last day of camp for competitions, discussions, and prizes.
Summer Camp was split into two separate camps for teachers and administrators:
Admin Summer Camp:
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How to navigate help articles, submit help tickets, and access training resources.
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Using alerts, templates, direct messaging, groups, secure document delivery, and several other ParentSquare features.
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How to utilize ParentSquare’s dashboard, data assistant, and contact verification features to ensure 100% contactability.
Teacher Summer Camp:
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How to navigate help articles, submit help tickets, and access training resources.
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Best practices including calendar and event syncing, post formatting, and more.
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Tips for increasing parent engagement with ParentSquare features like design blocks and add-ons.
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Core ways to communicate in ParentSquare, including direct messaging, forms and permission slips, and appointment sign-ups.
How Did Campers Rate the Experience?
Some campers were new ParentSquare users who were just rolling out the platform, and camp was a great way for them to learn the platform and its features before school started.
Customer Spotlight: Lars Rood, tech integration specialist for Lake Washington Unified School District, attended both the administrator and teacher summer camps to get comfortable with ParentSquare while his district launched across 60 sites. You can watch his customer spotlight video to learn more about his experience here.
Others used camp as a way to refresh their ParentSquare skills, learn new things about the platform, and receive answers to their questions:
Even after learning ParentSquare for the first time with my past employer, participating in this summer camp was a worthwhile refresher on several items and taught me several other tips that will serve me well moving forward. – Admin, Bellingham Public Schools
Even though we have been using PS for two years, I still get a lot out of this camp. It’s a great refresher. – Admin, Brewster Central School District
On average, teachers rated camp a 4.5 out of 5, while admins rated camp a 4.7 out of 5. Here’s what some other campers had to say about the experience:
I like that the videos are short and sweet. I felt informed and not overwhelmed. – Teacher, Southern Tioga School District
This was great. Best PD I have attended in awhile! Great hands on tasks. Our SU had a number of people attend and do it together. – Admin, Monticello Central School District
More confident using and teaching about Parentsquare now. Thanks! – Admin, Jurupa Unified School District
I enjoyed that I was able to complete the training on my time. I was able to explore more and have the chance to practice. Thank you! – Teacher, Williston Basin School District
Very detailed camp. So many useful videos that I will go back and rewatch! Looking forward to utilizing Parent Square this coming school year. – Admin, Moriah Elementary School
If you missed this year’s summer camp, you can still access all of the activities and content on our help pages (login required). Plus, stay tuned for more details on next year’s summer camp!
If you are not currently using ParentSquare and would like to learn more about our platform and how to join the Summer Camp fun next year, please click below to schedule a demo.
