School-home communication apps/sites

[Anonymous]

Our school used Bloomz this year with mixed results. It has lots of advertised features but in the end, communication between school and families failed to work on more than one occasion. What else are schools using to manage school-home communications?

[Anonymous]

Email - newsletter weekly from administration.

As needed from classroom teachers.

Old school but it works fine. MS/HS.

[Anonymous]

Fresh Schools

[Anonymous]

Email, robo calls, flyers and ClassDojo

[Anonymous]

Weekly newsletter/email update to entire class via email from teacher.

Robocalls or blackboard messages from administrators.

Individual emails from teacher to parents about child.

Posters/flyers from administrators and PTO.

Emails from room parents.

School listserv.

[Anonymous]

A school my child used to attend used robocalls for important reminders. It was kind of annoying, but it worked better than anything our current school has tried.

Our current school uses Bloomz and I don't have much positive to say about it.

They also use a text messaging service for snow days. I think using texts more often would be really useful. It is easy for me to miss emails, but I always check my texts. Reminder: your child has a field trip xyz day. Reminder: sign up for parent teacher conferences. Go to xyz website to sign up for your slot. Reminder: there's a school performance. Etc.

The school overall relies far too much on Bloomz/email. More paper and texts would be helpful.

[Anonymous]

Shutterfly share sites
Website
Newsletter
robo calls
Direct emails

Would love to hear a replacement for shutterfly!

[Anonymous]

Will they still call the home phone if you want them to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Will they still call the home phone if you want them to?

P.S. My cell phone doesn't take apps (flip phone), and is wifi only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shutterfly share sites
Website
Newsletter
robo calls
Direct emails

Would love to hear a replacement for shutterfly!

Why? I love Shutterfly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shutterfly share sites
Website
Newsletter
robo calls
Direct emails

Would love to hear a replacement for shutterfly!

Why? I love Shutterfly.

Why do you love it? I cannot stand it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shutterfly share sites
Website
Newsletter
robo calls
Direct emails

Would love to hear a replacement for shutterfly!

Why? I love Shutterfly.

Why do you love it? I cannot stand it.

If they updated it it would be fine. But it's clunky, hard to use and has a lot of barriers to send and receive information. Would love to hear ideas to replace it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will they still call the home phone if you want them to?

P.S. My cell phone doesn't take apps (flip phone), and is wifi only.

Why would you have a cell phone that is wifi only but with no apps? Do you mean it doesn't take wifi?

And they generally only send robo calls about major stuff. Email for the rest of it.

[Anonymous]

I think that having an app-only communication mechanism misses an entire section of the population. Some classrooms at our school used the Bloomz app, and over half of the class never checked it (or probably downloaded the app). I'm a huge fan of electronic communication, but I think we should stick to email until everyone is really using nothing but applications on smartphones. We aren't there yet. Plus, there are a lot of grandparents that take care of kids at our school, so I'm pretty sure that most (not all) don't really use a smart phone either.

I'd stick to emails (from teachers, other parents and administration) plus robo calls/texts for emergencies (school closings). They also need to do some paper flyers and posters to get messages across. I'm super organized and I forgot some things this year as well!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think that having an app-only communication mechanism misses an entire section of the population. Some classrooms at our school used the Bloomz app, and over half of the class never checked it (or probably downloaded the app). I'm a huge fan of electronic communication, but I think we should stick to email until everyone is really using nothing but applications on smartphones. We aren't there yet. Plus, there are a lot of grandparents that take care of kids at our school, so I'm pretty sure that most (not all) don't really use a smart phone either.

I'd stick to emails (from teachers, other parents and administration) plus robo calls/texts for emergencies (school closings). They also need to do some paper flyers and posters to get messages across. I'm super organized and I forgot some things this year as well!

Texts are even better than email if you care about reaching everyone. And yes, paper isn't dead.