Hello from San Jose, CA

Janine Vincent, Newton County Schools, Decatur, MS

Hi. Good morning

Hello from South Whidbey, Washington State

Jeffrey Im, Redlands USD, CA

Debi Ball from Pearl River County School District in South Mississippi.

Leila Cohen from Sunderland Elementary in Sunderland, MA

Hello From Braintree, MA

Hello everyone, Meta Johnson

Hello! Lori Underwood from Hanover School District in Colorado Springs, CO

Eunice Harris from Colton Joint USD, California

Vidya Sundaram, co-founder and CEO of Family Engagement Lab. Hello everyone!

Hello from Duanesburg, New York

Hello from Beaverton School District, Oregon

Hello! Sandra Tuleja from Allegan, MI Community Action Allegan Head Start.

Frank from Bellingham, WA. (Oh. Wait. I'm the moderator.)

Taylor Garcia from Austin, TX!

Michelle Kilroy

Cloquet MN

Good morning from Southern California at CJUSD

Dorothy from Christoval, TX

Alejandra De La Torre

Hello from Peninsula School District in Gig Harbor, WA

Terri Dawn Arnold, Assistant Principal - Las Plumas HS, Oroville Union High School District - California

Megan from Corvallis School District in Corvallis, Oregon! (Hi, Beaverton OR!)

Redesign Schools Louisiana, Baton Rouge, LA

Elise from Tennessee

Luana from Hawaii

Kevin Covert from TJUHSD in Tulare, California..Good Morning

hi from Morgan Hill ca

Hi Megan!

Greetings everyone from Wash DC!

Hello from San Diego, California

Jason Hawkins, Vice Principal - Quincy, CA

HI from Durham, CT

Hi from Colton, CA

Susan Friend - Canandaigua City School District

Hi there ...hope you are doing well.Happy Teacher Appreciation day

Alice Grant, VA

Hello from Danville, Indiana!

Hello from the Solana Beach School District!

Hello from OC!

Hello from Waco, Texas!

Hello from Camarillo, CA

Hello, FACE Liaison at SAUSD in Santa Ana, CA

Question from Jeffrey IM for panelists if time allows: for mobile apps, what about districts where smart phones are not prevalent? this can occur for different reasons, but I could see this connected to high low-socio-economic schools and districts.

Please feel free to post your own insights, comments here on the results and/or discussion. Do you see parents wanting to be able to go back find info again later? Voicemails not popular ?

if there was a sufficient training for these apps. to show us how to help our kids with their class projects, homework and interests. keep us informed daily based. how to keep the kids safe at same time from hackers predators

At our school district, the voice call overuse of our sites caused our parents to feel overwhelmed. They stopped picking up. 🙁

Thus, the importance in an emergency situation to take advantage of voice, text, and email

Our director sends a very brief voice call once a week with highlights of her PS post. We've found parents like this combination.

This is great Toni, thank you! We are hearing more about “Best Practices” for how to use each form of communication and its frequency for the most impact to increase engagement.

Agree Janine - “Thus, the importance in an emergency situation to take advantage of voice, text, and email” (have to have multichannel approach in order to reach everyone)

I would like to know if Parent Square offers webinars for families to make the best use of the PS phone application. I realize there is plenty of features within the app but I am afraid that we don’t really know how to use them.

We stopped using voice in emergency alerts, just text and email only. We’d get a deluge of calls to the main office asking “I just got a call and missed it." Super distracting for staff trying to attend to the emergency at hand.

Alejandra - can you share which district you are with? We can definitely follow up after the webinar and share some resources.

Thank you Christy! I am here from Colton Joint Unified School District

Hi Alejandra, this webinar won’t touch on ParentSquare - we’re looking at the survey results, but Christy will share with you resources for parents. We never message our school/district parents directly - we only communicate with school admin contacts.

Trinette: “Meeting people where they are…” I bet that resonates with everyone

Thank you Paula! I realize that. What I am seeking is a way to promote the use of the PS app at district level parent meetings.

Thanks Alejandra! We will be sure to follow up.

Paula.... our family really relies on communication tools and services.

👍

It would be great if it could integrate into School Tool for parents to directly upload medical info, etc, etc.

We do ask our families about their preferred method of communication within our annual LCAP Survey. At CJUSD, it is text messages.

Does your school district identify what each family member prefers as to channel? Hmmm good question

👍

Interesting question… is texting the ‘next paper?’

I feel like texting has its place, but it doesn't fit for searchability like app posts or emails.

The answer is 'yes'. I already ignore most text messages, social media posts, etc.

Each Family has unique needs.

Yes can get "noisy" and everything is not of equal importance or urgency.

Text IS noisy now, isn’t it? I admit I even miss important texts from time to time b/c of so much coming in more generally

I agree with Keith… text can become noisy. Nevertheless, families prefer it over voice calls….

Which wasn’t the case a few years ago...

Right! I used to send so many voice calls and parents loved them back in the day….

“Central place for families to find messages” even they come in on multiple channels..

Yes channel and purpose! Searchability is key.

👍

Including ‘face-to-face’ in your channel list, strategy… I like it

I only want to be communicated with when absolutely necessary, and I want control how it is delivered.

The 5 minute conference when a parent picks up or drops off has been sorely missed the past 2 years.

[I must say as a parent Back to Schoo Nights in person were exponentially better than the Zoom versions we’ve had last 2 years…I stopped feeling connected to my daughter’s high schools]

Tracy: “…and I want control how it is delivered.”

Possible Question: FAMILY TRAINING on digital tools…. Mb discuss? “I would like to see a better training process for parents with these new applications being used more hands on training. personally I was lost first part of school year. like a tube video walks u thru step by step.”

I agree Paul's in person is important I want to see what my child is dealing with daily who how where ect.. what does his desk look like

Yes completely agree. This is an equity issue.

I’m curious, to what extent do families have insight into the curriculum and programs used in their children’s schools? Beyond just knowing the names of them. Does anyone’s school share insight/training for families on the reading, writing, math, science, SEL, etc. programs they use?

At the end of the day, artificial intelligence translations can be a plus with the understanding that it will be less than perfect.

why not get Google language involved has anyone tried asking them to contribute to our future

good question rachel

Individuals who are biliterate or polyglots will tell you that AI translations can pose communications challenges to both parties. Nevertheless, it is better than not having such tools.

Looks like we actually HAVE some vocal parents here - Samantha and Rachel…

YES!!!

I need training I'm not ashamed and glasses lol

We need parents to become fully

Proficient in using our communication platforms.

👍

I love training, but what I've discovered is technology knowledge is so vastly different that there isn't a one size fits all. You really need to thing in levels.

Nice, Toni

Back to School nights! Add it in as a short segment?

We struggle with a district where over 70% are on FRL. A lot do not have internet at home.

☝️

+1 for training students to providing support

Training, if designed and developed well, can be effective for many. Developing training in bite-sized chunks can be one way to meet parents at their level with info that is delivered in small increments as to not overwhelm.

I’d love to see multiple opportunities to participate throughout the school year, beyond 2 conferences and maybe 1 back-to-school night.

I agree Rachael - depends on elementary, middle, upper grades too I imagine?

Yes. Kindness matters

Great ideas, Trinette - peer connections/visibility…

HAHA We have a teacher that has an aura that breaks technology. I've witnessed it. She will do everything just right, but one time it works and the next it won't. She often resorts to paper.

YES @Dr. O’Bryon!

Specific translation question that perhaps someone here might want to comment on? “I would like to know if there is someone out there that is using a translation service for the Guatemalan dialects. We are using IRCO and the mam dialect has different variations and translation is hit and miss.”

(It’s out of scope of the panel discussion)

A question earlier from Jeffrey Im: for mobile apps, what about districts where smart phones are not prevalent? this can occur for different reasons, but I could see this connected to high low-socio-economic schools and districts.Christy Burnette (You) 1:09 PMGreat discussion item Jeffrey! Do you see this often? Our panelists might be able to chime in further.Jeffrey Im 1:36 PMYes, this occurs at specific school sites in our district. Additionally, I wonder about immigrants who do not want connections to them due to federal choices over the last few years.

I think phone apps and text help. Families may not have a computer, but they might have a phone. Paper in my opinion is still an important fall back. There is still nothing like a flyer on the fridge for an Event.

👍

At our district, we meet with families at district level. I record every meeting and make the recordings available to families. Some review the content after having attended from work while others simply rely on the recording. I offer meetings in Spanish in the morning and the exact same content in the evenings for English speaking families. It works very well.

Picking up on what Keith said: where are parents working? If you have a lot of parents working at a particular employer, is there a way that they can encourage/support parents in learning about tech tools and communication?

Oh Lordy... YES. Consistency

☝️

Some families are still hesitant to use technology. They are afraid of moving forward. Our message to them is that they need to meet their children where they are at…. Venturing out of their comfort zone shows their kids that they are willing to learn and to continue to support them.

Makes me think of teacher/staff training too!

Yes.

Thanks, Rita 🙂

Parents are also afraid of being tracked. Well maybe not afraid, but don't like being tracked. They don't understand the tracking we do is to learn how and what they are accessing using apps or platforms.

Toni, that had not occurred to me but you make a great point!

True equity is not simply access, but also use.

After school programs are powerful potential partners....good point!

For immigrant families, we capture their attention at our Language Assessment Center, when they bring their children to take our language proficiency assessment

Thanks Paula. Communication tools do have many facets to them depending who what when and where it is specifically being used.

Thank you all for attending this webinar! Please complete our post-event survey if you’d like to receive a certificate of attendance or provide feedback:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSehKlZkloj-JCs5Yu0qTEvpsm01CUMEpJeWb9D6SKVAmjMaiw/viewform

Thank you all for attending this webinar! Please complete our post-event survey if you’d like to receive a certificate of attendance or provide feedback:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSehKlZkloj-JCs5Yu0qTEvpsm01CUMEpJeWb9D6SKVAmjMaiw/viewform

Download the infographic here: https://www.parentsquare.com/engage/communications-future-infographic/

Good morning every one!

Might you also send these links to us in the follow up email to attendees please?

ParentSquare Live Tour webinar (June) registration link: https://parentsquare.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_13NXqNhsQmqo_GMPGikQqgCoSN webinar (May) registration link: https://parentsquare.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_XM7M0l12S8eQF_1CUa7lJQ

Thank you all!

GREAT INFORMATION. THANK YOU

THANK YOU!