Effective school-to-home communications are a critical component of student success, yet many districts and schools don’t know if their communications are working well or if stakeholders are engaged. To help them evaluate and improve their efforts, ParentSquare is sponsoring a new, free online School Communications Self-Assessment tool, which allows school leaders to benchmark their school communications against current best practices in K-12.
The School Communications Self-Assessment consists of multiple-choice questions that evaluate five critical areas including:
- Contactability — Practices and technology that facilitate contacting as close to 100% of families as possible
- Content and Frequency — Practices to ensure communications sent to families contain actionable content, are easily recognizable, and are sent at optimal times to avoid message fatigue
- Family Access and Control — Practices that remove communication barriers and increase flexibility
- Privacy and Technology — Compliance with regulations and industry-leading security protocols
- Oversight and Analytics — Practices and tools that enable administrators to fully understand their district’s school-home communications
Once they complete the assessment, participants receive an overall score, along with an individual score for each of the five school communications areas. Additionally, participants will receive a detailed PDF report based on their answers, containing score-specific recommendations to help them modify any identified areas for improvement related to their district practices or school-home communications. The self-assessment and its recommendations are designed to be helpful to education leaders no matter what communications tools or methods they currently use, or plan to use.
A related infographic titled “K-12 Communications Platforms: What Matters Most?”, serves as a quick-reference companion to the assessment. It outlines the most important things needed in a school-home communications platform for various stakeholders including superintendents, communications officers, technology leaders, principals, teachers, and families.
“There’s no question that since March 2020 students and their families have had to endure many disruptions to their daily lives,” said Anupama Vaid, ParentSquare Founder & President. “Making sure they can adapt to the changing school environment and stay on track requires that schools share information with their families as quickly and effectively as possible. That’s why now is the time for districts and schools to closely evaluate whether or not their current communications strategies are getting the job done. This new tool will give K-12 leaders actionable information that they can use to fine-tune and elevate their ongoing communications efforts.”
Source: PR Web
