Fort Osage School District

How do you see your teachers using Teacher Communications today?

“We see our teachers using it for forms being due, upcoming tests, and reminders like that. But we have seen our teachers get a little bit more creative with it and make the system work for them.

One of the upper elementary band teachers has a message that says, ‘Your child forgot their instrument today. I talked to them. Could you talk to them at home tonight? Participating in band is tough when you don't bring the instrument.’

Each day, he could immediately send that generic message to anyone who didn't bring their instrument, or the same with PE teachers for gym clothes. We've had some of our staff use it when students are inviting parents to events: a student records a message to come to an event, whether it’s a classroom activity, a choir concert, or a band concert; getting the students involved in that communication helps get it out to their school and their parent community.

It’s also been great for sports communication. For example, our track team never knows exactly when a track meet will end and when they'll return to school. So the coach could easily send a quick text message to parents saying, ‘Hey, we're leaving this school now, and we'll be back to Fort Osage at this time to pick up your kid.’ Coaches found this more effective than hoping the kids would text their parents.”

What types of scenarios are you using Teacher Communications for? Does your district use it during urgent situations, or is it more for reminders and check-ins with parents?

“For example, today, we lost power at an early childhood center. I quickly sent a message to the AM parents of kids at school and then a separate message to the PM parents. I could get that all done within about five minutes. I don't know that would be the case if we didn't have the Teacher Communications system.

We’ve also had five snow days this year, so teachers can send a message with information without releasing their personal phone numbers. They can also send a text reminder, which gets people to pay more attention than email.  We see quite a few messages like, ‘Don't forget we're starting our Alternative Methods of Instruction (AMI) days at 9:00 AM. See your email for all the instructions and details.’”

In terms of equity, how are you using the translation features to reach families who speak another language other than English at home?

“We have that automatically set up in the system, so a teacher doesn't even have to know if a parent's first language is English or not. The system will detect that and automatically translate that message for the family.”

As an administrator, how has Teacher Communications helped you? Are you empowering teachers to communicate more, and do its features align with the district communication goals that you're trying to support?

“You're empowering your teachers to quickly and easily communicate with the families in their classroom. Email is an easy way to communicate, but we all know how email overload is taking over and how easily things can get missed or lost. Having a tool that’s easy to use, easy to train on, and can be used from a variety of different platforms or spaces—be it the mobile app or computer interface—and for the teacher to know that everything goes to every parent and updates overnight, I think, really does empower them. 

I think back to when you'd have an open house or back-to-school night, and you asked parents, ‘Please give me your email address and phone number,’ and a teacher would build a list. But, as family dynamics change, not everybody is getting communicated with. It really empowers those teachers to know that everything's up to date, and they don't have to worry about it or have to ask constantly for updates.

The other thing I like about Teacher Communications is that it’s not an opt-in—you're automatically signed up to receive information from your teacher. You don't have to subscribe to something and enter a code. That empowers our teachers to know that the communication will get to the people they need it to get to.”

Do you see better relationships developing between teachers, parents, and families? How has Teacher Communications supported those relationships that do exist?

“Anecdotally, yes. I think about more complicated situations where a teacher has promised, ‘I'll email you every Friday,’ and the parent doesn't get it. The teacher has that log that they can show, ‘Okay, well, I did send it. Let's figure out what's happening.’ It helps to build that trust. 

It helps those families that don't speak English as their first language because that is a big communication barrier for our teachers. Whether you're a teacher or not, most folks are not necessarily fluent in multiple languages. Knowing that they can still get their messages across, parents can get a much better idea of what's needed to help their child than if the teacher was just trying to communicate without such a system.”

Schools often have limited budgets. How do you demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of Teacher Communications to stakeholders? Have you identified any tangible returns on your investment, whether in time, dollars saved, or just peace of mind?

“We definitely think it's a time factor. More often than not, principals at schools have certain communication requirements for their staff to communicate with parents. So, principals being able to run reports or be CC’d on communications is very seamless and easy. 

What we do for the return on the investment is we'll take a look at the total cost that we're paying for that system, and then we'll run the reports to divide out how often we're using it. We can break it down to less than pennies per message that we're sending out in a school year. We can get those total numbers of messages, and we report that to our Board of Education every year and share, ‘Here's how widely we're using the system, here's our success rate,’ and we can break it down by that cost.”

How has communication with families changed over the years, and how does Teacher Communications fit into that evolution?

“When I first started, communicating with families was not always easy. It was often copying and pasting the same message, and it was all email. So I think the evolution of being able to send a message as a teacher that is a voicemail or a text message has been tremendous. Whether a coach or a teacher uses a mobile app to do the same thing on a desktop, it’s more flexible for them to communicate in the time and space they have because they’re busy people.

Also, family dynamics have changed significantly in 20 years … You have a diverse mix of parents who work overnight or who are rarely home to get the message about the test or to communicate or help. Knowing that we can be flexible in who gets that communication and how we can make sure that we're supporting students and what they need has been tremendous.”