One of the features available for districts that have purchased SchoolStatus Pro is the ability to send a Broadcast message to students' self contacts. This may raise some questions from parents regarding the privacy of their children and the security of communications that they themselves may not see. We understand that the safety and privacy of students in the districts that use SchoolStatus for their communications are paramount. In that spirit, we will address the most common questions regarding direct student contact by school staff members here. If you have any questions that are not answered here, please let us know by sending an email to help@schoolstatus.com. Our Support Team is here to help with anything you need.
My District Is A SchoolStatus Pro Subscriber, But I Don't See Student Contact Information On My Student Cards. Why?
We reflect the information that is sent to us from your district's Student Information System (SIS), so this could be due to several factors. Your district may not have those contacts entered into the SIS. Or they may not have requested that we sync those contacts into SchoolStatus. If you think you should be seeing student contacts, please reach out to your district's administration and ask if they're utilizing this feature.
Where Do Our Student Contacts Come From?
Student contacts, like any other contact information found in SchoolStatus, are brought in from your district's Student Information System. When a student contact number or email address is entered into the SIS, SchoolStatus will sync with your system overnight and that number will be available on the student card the next day.
Can I Add A Student Number Directly To SchoolStatus?
No. Phone numbers or email addresses for student contacts (or any contact) must be entered into the SIS and synced to SchoolStatus from there. We want to ensure there is only one source of truth for all student information, so there is no confusion as to from where that data is coming. For this reason, there is no way to directly enter a number into the SchoolStatus interface. If you need to update a number for a student contact, please contact the administration of your school or district and inform them of the change, so they can update the SIS.
What Do I Tell Parents That Are Concerned With Teachers Directly Contacting Students?
We completely understand that allowing direct communication with students raises questions of privacy and security, and we centered these concerns when developing this feature. Just like any other contact made through SchoolStatus, every text message and email is saved in perpetuity. Unless a district has requested otherwise, all calls are recorded, and kept in perpetuity. All communications through SchoolStatus must be made to contacts within the SIS, and, as mentioned above, cannot be added directly to the interface.
Also, staff members are only given access to students either through the district SIS, or through a Student Group, created by an administrator in the school or district. Only students who are within the scope defined by the district or administrator for the staff member will be available for contacting through SchoolStatus. This means that if a teacher has no legitimate reason to contact a student, that student will not be available for them to contact. Additionally, every district has school-wide and district-wide staff members that have access to all communications by teachers in their purview, so messages are always subject to review by administrative staff members as designated by the district.