Text messaging for schools and PTAs

Schools already have four ways to reach parents and none of them work when it matters. The newsletter is read by the parents who least need it. The app was installed by a third of families in September and deleted by November. The phone tree depends on volunteers being awake. The email goes to an address people check at work.

Text is the channel that survives an emergency, because it is the only one that does not require the recipient to have opted into a system, remembered a password, or be near a computer.

The three messages that matter

Closures. Snow, water, power, staffing. This is the message people judge a school on, and it needs to arrive before parents have left for the school run, not after.

Transport. A late bus is a small thing that becomes a large thing when a parent is standing at a stop with no information.

Deadlines. Permission slips, payment cutoffs, picture day. A nudge sent to everyone costs a few dollars and saves the office a morning of chasing.

Groups, so the right families get it

Parents can be split by grade, by classroom, by bus route or by activity. The kindergarten families do not need the varsity schedule. Sending to everyone every time is the fastest way to get parents to tune your messages out.

Replies do not become a reply-all

When a parent replies, it comes back to the office inbox, not to the other 1,400 families. That is the difference between this and a group message thread, and for a school it is the whole point. See group texting without reply-all.

There is no subscription. A district that sends twice a semester pays for twice a semester.