ParentSquare’s New Buyer’s Guide Helps Districts Effectively Evaluate K-12 School-Home Communication Platforms

“Selecting a K-12 Communications Platform” guide includes a checklist of criteria and addresses common communication challenges that educators encounter when trying to engage student families.

Santa Barbara, CA — March 13, 2023— Building trust between home and school is a critical component of a healthy school culture and engaged families. Clear, authentic communication is the foundation of that trust. To help districts build this connection with students’ families, ParentSquare, the modern school-home communications platform for K-12 education, has published a buyers’ guide titled “Selecting a K-12 Communications Platform to Grow Family Engagement.”

The 13-page guide shares the different challenges that a unified platform can help solve for districts such as:

• Higher expenses and user confusion resulting from too many communications tools
• Families overwhelmed by a high volume of inbound messages and variety of messaging channels
• Equitable communication with all families
• Maintenance of data privacy, accuracy, and security

ParentSquare’s comprehensive guide also shares an easy-to-use checklist of questions district administrators and communications leaders should ask when evaluating home-school communications options. In addition to basic features and functionality, the checklist is divided into sections that address properties that would benefit each of the important audiences of a district, including:

• Parents and guardians
• Teachers
• Students
• Principals
• Communications staff
• School services
• Data privacy and security
• District Administration

The guide also tells the stories of two districts that improved their school-home communications efforts. The first is Brenham Independent School District, a small rural district in Texas with a student population that’s 50% Hispanic. The other is the Yakima School District in Washington state, a larger district where eight different languages are spoken.

“Effective home-school communications are vital as districts and communities continue to recover from the disruptions of the past few years,” ParentSquare President and Founder Anupama Vaid said. “Districts have an array of issues, including linguistic differences, equity, safety, and engagement, to consider when planning school-home communications. We’ve created this guide so that readers can ensure that any communications platform they consider will meet the needs of everyone across the entire district and community.”

“A Guide to Selecting a Comprehensive Platform to Unify School-to-Home Communications” is available for download at no charge at https://www.parentsquare.com/buyers-guide/.

About ParentSquare™

ParentSquare is the leading provider of modern family and community engagement solutions for K-12 schools. Millions of educators and families in 49 states rely on the multipurpose unified platform that includes mass notifications, classroom communications, school websites, and other communication-based services, all supported by visual dashboards. ParentSquare’s technology platform features comprehensive integrations with school administrative systems, translation to more than 100 languages, and app, email, text, voice, and web portal access for equitable communication. Founded in 2011, the company is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA. Learn more at https://www.parentsquare.com.

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