Episode 258: What Parents Need to Know About JSD’s New Communications Platform “ParentSquare”

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Anthony Godfrey:
I'm really excited about the fact that parents can optimize and customize how we communicate with them.

Steffany Ellsworth:
ParentSquare is gonna allow parents to choose how they want to engage with their students.

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Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. This week we'll be talking about our new parent communication tool, ParentSquare. I'm really excited about this new option for schools, parents, and teachers. ParentSquare is customizable, it has a ton of great features, and I can't wait for you to learn more about how we'll be communicating with Jordan School District families this year.

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We're talking with Steffany Ellsworth, the Support Services Manager in Information Systems for Jordan School District, Steffany, thanks for taking a few minutes.

Steffany Ellsworth:
You're welcome, it's great to be here.

Anthony Godfrey:
We are launching, you are launching ParentSquare as our latest communication tool. Tell us, what is ParentSquare? Let's dive right in.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Okay, ParentSquare, it's an awesome communication platform created to streamline home-to-school communication. Parents in ParentSquare have the ability to choose the modality they prefer to receive messages, whether it's email, text, or app notifications. It also allows parents to select the frequency in which they receive messages, whether it's an instant message they get as soon as the school has sent it, or they can receive them digested daily at the end of the day. There's three types of messages. There's posts, which come across as a news feed similar to Facebook or other social media platforms.

Anthony Godfrey:
And do they access that through the app or on the website, or how do they access that?

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yeah, that's correct.

Anthony Godfrey:
The posts?

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yeah, they can see the posts on the ParentSquare website or through the app. They also get those posts as an email or a text. So if they never log into ParentSquare, they'll still get those messages through email or in a text message. They'll receive a link to see the post. The second type of message is direct messages. These are meant for one-to-one communication between parent and teachers.

Anthony Godfrey:
And how does that come through? Does that come through the app? Or is that also through text message and email? Is that what you're referring to?

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes, it's really all about parent preference. So if they've stated that they prefer to receive a text, they'll receive those through a text. If they prefer the app, they'll receive a notification through the app. If they've done nothing at all, they will receive a text and an email stating that they have a message and it'll show the message. Parents can respond directly to that text message to communicate with the teacher.

Anthony Godfrey:
So a post, much like on social media that you can view through the website or the app, and then text, email, or direct message through the app depending on what the parent chooses. And what's the third type?

Steffany Ellsworth:
The third type are alerts. These are our traditional messages that we've sent about snow day closures or emergency situations at the school.

Anthony Godfrey:
Don't say snow day closure, you can't jinx us.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Okay. (both laughing) Alerts will override any of the parent's preferences. They'll get those instantaneously and they will be a phone call, an email, and a text message.

Anthony Godfrey:
For the direct messages and for the school-wide or district-wide messages, parents can decide, I want to receive all the messages at once, or I'll receive them as they're sent throughout the day. So they have that choice.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
But an alert is going to override any of that. So if there's a snow day, an emergency, something that we need to let parents know about right away, it'll come by phone, text, and email, and that overrides the preferences.

Steffany Ellsworth:
That's correct.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. You can safely say, you know, I want everything one time a day, but you'll know that you're also going to get emergency communication in a timely way.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
So what do parents need to do? When they're registering their student for school, the contact information that they enter goes into ParentSquare and allows us to communicate with them that way. What else do they need to do to make the most of ParentSquare?

Steffany Ellsworth:
So parents can sign into ParentSquare, set their notification preferences, their language preferences. All of their contact data is synced from Skyward, which is really nice because they complete registration for school every year and update their contact information. They don't have to do that multiple times and go into ParentSquare and enter their contact information again. It's going to sync over from Skyward nightly. So complete registration from school. Then to get signed into ParentSquare, they can either download the app– there's an iOS or an Android app available through your app store. They can download the app, or if they choose not to sign into ParentSquare, they'll still receive emails and texts. However, if they do choose to sign in to ParentSquare, they'll get to select, do I want to receive an email or a text or both, and how often do I want to receive those?

Anthony Godfrey:
So you don't need to sign in in order to receive messages, but you do need to sign in in order to manage how you receive those messages.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yep, yep. And to sign in, they'll just visit parentsquare.com or download the app and sign in using either their phone number or email address that they've provided to the school.

Anthony Godfrey:
So the same email, same phone number will get you in there. That's great.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yep.

Anthony Godfrey:
And now if they want to update their information through the year, they move during the year or want to receive information in a different email or phone number, sometimes once you start getting those messages, you think, okay, I don't want it coming to my cell anymore. I want it coming to this other phone number. How do they go about changing that?

Steffany Ellsworth:
The nice thing about ParentSquare is again, that all of our contact information is synced from Skyward, so it doesn't need to be managed in two different places. You can either update your contact information in Skyward's Family Access or contact your school and let them know that you've had a change in phone number or email.

Anthony Godfrey:
Can they choose not to receive messages at all?

Steffany Ellsworth:
They can, yes. They can unsubscribe from messages. However, they're never going to be able to unsubscribe from those emergency alert notifications. So anytime there's an emergency alert sent, it's going to send. If they do choose to unsubscribe, they need to know that they're also unsubscribing from direct messages from their teachers too.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, so unsubscribing is an option. Can they manage the information that they receive and only get one-to-one messages but not receive the broader messages from the school or district?

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes, they can. So really the better option rather than unsubscribing is to set the frequency versus posts versus direct messages and how you choose to receive those.

Anthony Godfrey:
So really, families ought to take a few minutes just to kind of customize what type of communication they want. For a while, every communication I got from the school, I would forward to my wife and then she'd let me know, "I'm getting those too, don't worry." You don't have to be forwarding them. So just kind of taking a moment to think about what's the best way for us to communicate as a district and for the school to communicate with families. That's a good thing to do at the start of the year, especially with this new ParentSquare program.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Absolutely. ParentSquare is going to allow parents to choose how they want to engage with their student's school to make it more customizable for them and make it easier for them to communicate.

Anthony Godfrey:
We've been talking about the next step in parent communication for a long time. One of the things for me that was really attractive about ParentSquare is the idea that this does go to text messaging. It doesn't require a separate app. Although there is one, you don't have to go to one more app to get this, the communication from teachers, the school, or the district. But the important component there is that you can manage whether you get texts and how frequently.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Because we all check our text messages, we all check our email, but probably text messages with greater frequency. So we don't ever want to be a pest, but we also want to make sure that parents are getting good information in a timely way. I'm really excited about the fact that parents can optimize and customize how we communicate with them.

Steffany Ellsworth:
It’s really convenient too. You know, if a teacher sends a direct message to a parent, the parent can simply reply via text. They don't have to ever log in. They can reply via text. They can save that number for future reference to send the teacher a text. You know, they'll want to pay attention to the teacher's office hours 'cause we know teachers have other lives outside of school.

Anthony Godfrey:
Right.

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Stay with us. When we come back, we're going to go over some more user-friendly tips to make the most of ParentSquare. And we'll let you know how to get ahold of the help desk if you need assistance.

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Never miss an episode of the Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

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Break:
In Jordan School District, we like to support students in and outside the classroom along with their families. That's where the Jordan Family Education Center comes in, offering support services and a wide variety of classes for students and their families, free of charge. You can take a class called Blues Busters for children feeling sad or worried. Just Breathe is a class that helps students reduce stress. Or how about a class that supports parents in helping their children make and keep good friends? There are also support groups and free counseling, all provided by Jordan School District school psychologists, and counselors. To find out how you can benefit from free family support services offered by the Jordan Family Education Center, call 801-565-7442 or visit guidance.jordandistrict.org.

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Anthony Godfrey:
Now I know that a lot of other districts are starting to use ParentSquare as well. And previously teachers used Remind 101 and then it was called Remind. There was a free version of that that a lot of teachers in Jordan used. We used Skyward and Skylerts that came out of our student information system. Talk about how we got to where we are now using ParentSquare and the relationship between the old Remind and Remind 101, ParentSquare, and Skyward.

Steffany Ellsworth:
You know, really one of the biggest requests that we get from schools in regards to communication is the ability to text parents. So we started looking at different options to be able to text parents without requiring parents to download an app. ParentSquare stood out as soon as we started researching this option. And then we learned that ParentSquare also acquired Remind. So with that, they took on a lot of new functionality, a lot of capabilities as far as texting and sending group messages. ParentSquare can be used not only to directly communicate teacher to home but it can also be used to communicate for extracurricular activities. You know, say a wrestling coach or a band instructor can contact their entire group of students similar to Remind through ParentSquare.

Anthony Godfrey:
It connects to Skyward, which is great for families and the contact information as you describe, but it also helps teachers because they're able to say, I wanna text a reminder to everyone in this class of what's due tomorrow. And they can send it to the student's phone with that going through a school system. So it's appropriate communication, it's an appropriate method of communication, but it's also direct instant communication so that the student gets a reminder or information about a meet, event, or assignment. And I'm really excited about that.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Students will use what's called StudentSquare. So they'll download a different app, it's called StudentSquare. It's only available for grades 7-12, but students can communicate with their club advisors, their coaches, their teachers using StudentSquare.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now we have a wonderful help desk and information systems for employees and for parents. Talk about how they access that and how they can get help with ParentSquare if parents have any questions.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes, we do. If any of their contact data is looking incorrect or it appears that data is not syncing properly from Skyward, they can give us a call at 801-567-8737. We can take a look at it there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Operators are standing by.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Yes, absolutely. Sometimes we will refer them back to the school just because the school needs to be the ones to update contact information or verify that they're actually speaking to a parent.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, so you can sometimes start with the school, but you can also call the help desk anytime and you're great to jump in and sort through things and help people out.

Steffany Ellsworth:
That's right.

Anthony Godfrey:
And if they're in ParentSquare, where can they get help from ParentSquare directly?

Steffany Ellsworth:
Logged into ParentSquare, the app, or the website, there's a question mark in the upper right-hand corner. Click on that. They have awesome help articles and videos.

Anthony Godfrey:
We'll put that in the show notes to be sure they're easy to access for anyone listening. And the trainings took place this summer. Like I said, we dove right in once ParentSquare was selected. I've heard a lot of enthusiasm from schools, just the functionality of being able to more effectively communicate with parents more directly in a more timely way. So this is really exciting for us. We want to strengthen that connection with parents always and I think this is a great tool to help us accomplish that.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Definitely.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, thanks for all your work to get us this far. Tell us a little bit about your journey to be in the position you're in right now in Information Systems. Where did you start out?

Steffany Ellsworth:
You know, I started with the school district as a part-time attendance administrative assistant at Joel P. Jensen. I loved it there. They have awesome students. I then became a registrar at Copper Hills High. Loved that job too, loved working with the students. And then I moved on to the help desk. So I worked on our help desk. I became a Customer Support Analyst, where we configure Skyward and train on how to use Skyward and other systems, Canvas, and things. And then I moved into the role of Support Services Manager, working with both the help desk and the school techs.

Anthony Godfrey:
I didn't realize that you had been a registrar. To me, you're just the person that I always think of when I need help. (laughs) You do a fantastic job. You help with all kinds of things in Information Systems. You have for a long time and I just really appreciate everything you do.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Thank you. That's so kind to hear. And, you know, being a registrar really was one of my favorite jobs I've ever had. It's such a challenging position, but also a rewarding position.

Anthony Godfrey:
Absolutely. Well, thanks very much, Steffany.

Steffany Ellsworth:
Thank you.

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Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.

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