Communications & Attendance

PowerSchool to Acquire Kinvolved, Add Its Communications Solutions

• By Kristal Kuykendall
• 01/25/22

PowerSchool, a major provider of cloud-based software for K–12 education, has announced a deal to acquire Kinvolved, a provider of K–12 communications, attendance, and engagement solutions serving over 250,000 students.

“Adding Kinvolved’s leading communication engine to PowerSchool’s Unified Home solution will enable schools and districts to strengthen and simplify overall communications and notifications between school and home to increase engagement and help reduce absenteeism,” PowerSchool said in a news release today.

Kinvolved is currently used in three of the four largest U.S. school districts. PowerSchool said the acquisition will allow schools using its teaching and learning software to centralize communication tools and attendance data “to help address chronic absenteeism and strengthen engagement between home and school.”

Adding Kinvolved to existing PowerSchool solutions benefits educators, students, and their families in multiple ways, according to the announcement:

• Deliver targeted mass communications: Kinvolved helps expedite the delivery of time-sensitive school, district, and class communications via text message, email, and voice call.
• Personalize 2-way communications: With Kinvolved, educators can support equity and increase accessibility for all parents using its individualized two-way communications that can instantly be translated into more than 80 languages.
• Improve student attendance: Studies show that increased family engagement is directly correlated to improved attendance and student outcomes. Kinvolved’s digital postcards reporting on student attendance/engagement provide administrators with built-in reporting for deliverability and open rates, supporting a more efficient and data-driven approach to managing attendance-based interventions.
• Further integration with PowerSchool: A partner with PowerSchool since 2019, Kinvolved already integrates with PowerSchool’s student information system. Kinvolved users can also expect additional embedded and seamless integrations with PowerSchool SIS, Schoology Learning, and other products.

Recent data released by the National Education Association “shows how crucial parents and families are to the education and growth of students, as support from the home directly increases student attendance and academic outcomes,” PowerSchool said. “Ongoing COVID-related disruptions have also increased the importance of schools being able to communicate time-sensitive updates to parents and families no matter where they are or the language they speak.”

As schools reopened fully or partially, chronic absenteeism increased dramatically, with some districts reaching rates as high as 40%. Student absences also impact schools’ budgets and recently accounted for $10.7 billion in lost annual funding.

PowerSchool and Kinvolved will continue to operate separately until an official close has been announced, according to the announcement of the acquisition deal. The transaction is expected to close in PowerSchool’s first fiscal quarter and will be funded with cash on hand, the company said.