01 — Who/When/Where

RUSD communications embarked on the development of a training and launch plan for the newly approved communications service ParentSquare in 2023. We launched the program for the 2024-2025 school year for families, employees, and the community.

02 — What

ParentSquare was selected as the new all-in-one district communication platform after a RFI & RFP process.

Why ParentSquare?

• Connection to Aeries

• Templates and ease of use

• Direct messaging capabilities and translation

• Secured documents

• Clean, Easy-to-use Platform

• Strong analytics

• Similar to Dojo, popular existing teacher communication platform

• Phone call/text ability

• Integrated calendar ability

• E-signature for forms

03 — Why

Through ParentSquare and in alignment with LCAP Goal 3.1c (Implement a strategic communications plan to increase community engagement) we sought to solve the following district communication issues:

• Address over-messaging to families

• Empower/protect teachers with one tool to communicate with families, providing proper oversight

• Review dynamic analytics to track all district communication efforts to examine effectiveness and switch up if needed

• Establish school sites as main information hub that the district can feed into to better reach families and increase engagement

01 — Goal

To develop a seamless launch for ParentSquare, which will unify district communication efforts, be intuitive for employee use, helpful for teacher and classroom use, and effective for family and community communication to increase engagement.

02 — Target Audiences

• Parents

• Students

• Teachers

• Administrators

  • School Site Administrators

  • District Administrators

  • Data Administrators

• Coaches and Walk-on coaches

• Super Users

01 - Developed a public-facing resource page for families to learn how to use ParentSquare.

02 - Created an intake form for families to submit questions or technical challenges.

01 — Results

Using the above tactics, our District has achieved a 98% contactable rate with 39,438 families.

Note: previously used platform did not provide comprehensive numbers.