Implementing a Unified Communication Platform to Build Community Trust

New York district overhauls school-to-home communications efforts with a unified, data-rich communication platform to improve disconnected communications with families.

• By Bruce Potter
• 07/01/21

New York district overhauls school-to-home communications efforts with a unified, data-rich communication platform to improve disconnected communications with families.

When I joined Mechanicville City School District in 2019, I immediately noticed that communications to students and their families were few and far between. I also noticed that communications between our district and homes only included input from select staff and wasn’t a collaborative effort. Instead of families receiving the entire story, for example, they were only receiving bits of the information that we really wanted to convey.

Without a clear picture of what was really going on, there was a disconnect with the community and lack of overall trust in the district. This culture spread among students, leaving them feeling like they too didn’t have strong relationships with their teachers or school leaders.

With all of this in mind, I knew we had to seize this critical opportunity, tackle these challenges, and rebuild trust in our school community. To get there, we needed to make clear, consistent, and transparent communications a priority so that we could build a vibrant school community with strong relationships.

5 Reasons to Adopt a Unified Communications Platform

By adopting ParentSquare’s unified communication platform, we felt that we could create exactly what we needed to bring our school community together — namely, a consistent communications plan that keeps school community members informed and allows them to voice their input.

Today, our district regularly communicates with our school community in real-time, receives parent feedback, and connects with community members in meaningful ways. Here are five more wins that we’ve seen since implementing our unified communication platform:

1. Better use of technology. Rather than sending out long emails or newsletters with a lot of text, we can upload videos every week with school and district updates. Parents can absorb a lot more information when they watch a quick video, and videos are also a more personal way for our school and district leaders to communicate home.

2. A two-way communication stream. Our parents also needed a way to reach school and district leaders. The platform has a survey feature that we use to gather feedback from parents, as well as two-way communication so that parents can communicate with the school and district straightaway.

3. Leverage the power of the web and social media. Using the platform’s Social Share feature, we can post information directly to our website, Twitter, or Facebook. This gives parents multiple places to find information, which is an improvement from our previous, limited communications approach.

4. Real-time insights and analytics. We now have powerful dashboards that provide real-time insights and analytics. These tools help us identify the parents and guardians that we are not reaching, so we can find alternative methods to connect. Additionally, we can ensure contact data is accurate and up-to-date, so everyone has a chance to engage with important communications.

5. Address COVID-19 protocols. Students and staff can fill out their Health Screening Form in the platform’s app, making an otherwise lengthy screening process more efficient, and helping our school community maintain compliance with state-specific and CDC-guidelines surrounding COVID-19.

Building a Better-Connected School District

I’m happy to report that our district has successfully reached its reimagined goal to provide consistent, transparent, purposeful, and timely communications to all school community members regarding district business with a special focus given to district goals. In fact, the platform made it really easy for us to rebuild our communications process from scratch. The district completely transformed its communications program so that every family is now informed and engaged, resulting in a more unified school community with strong trust.

Bruce Potter is Superintendent at Mechanicville City School District in New York.