Start the school year off right! Follow these steps - and share them with the educators in your district - to prevent issues when using your SchoolStatus account.
Account set up
Log in and click Settings on the top right.
- Update your password, if you need a new one.
- Verify your phone number, so that you can link your SchoolStatus app to your account or change your password via text.
- Adjust your callback time settings.
- Receive a Daily Digest email (admins only) with statistics about attendance, discipline and more
- Don't forget to Update!
Communications
To initiate new 1:1 communications with parents, start here:
- Open the Student Card, by clicking the student's name anywhere you see it, or using the Find a Student field.
- Click Contacts on the Student Card.
- Select the method icon: call, text, or email.
- To learn all about calling: https://help.schoolstatus.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025474872-Making-Phone-Calls
- To learn all about texting: https://help.schoolstatus.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032402892-Sending-Text-Messages
- To learn all about email: https://help.schoolstatus.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025474212-How-to-Email-a-Parent-in-SchoolStatus
Broadcasting
You can send a Broadcast message to a class or to a custom group of students.
- Mark Preferred Contacts with a star, by using these steps to indicate who should receive the Broadcast: https://help.schoolstatus.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025474072-Select-Preferred-Contacts-for-students-with-a-Star
- Send your Broadcast to a class using these steps: https://help.schoolstatus.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025638551-Send-a-Broadcast-to-a-Course-or-Student-Group
- Or set up a Student Group so you can Broadcast to their parents, using these steps: https://help.schoolstatus.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041130971-Create-a-Student-Group-Using-Searchlight
- Tip: When the parent replies after you reach out for the first time, this "locks in" the number that was used to conceal your personal contact information. If they do not reply, they will see you reaching out from a new number every time. We've discovered that an effective way to prompt busy parents to reply is by asking them to simply send a "Y"- so you may want to use this sample message as your first Broadcast: "This is Mr/Ms X, your child’s teacher. Please reply Y and save me as a contact, so that you will know it is me when I contact you." Expect a flurry of "Y" responses soon after you do this!
Keeping parent contact information up-to-date
Sometimes the student's living arrangements have changed, or the number you have belongs to someone who is not the parent. Here are some tips to keep lines of communication open!
- Communicate with your parents, so they know how important it is to stay in contact about their student. You may want to explain that there is significant data to indicate that having a strong teacher-family relationship improves student outcomes - or you may simply want to say, "Call or text me anytime! Your family is important to me!"
- Knowing their relationship to the child is as important as having the correct phone number. Find out who the right contact is for your communications. Who transports the child? Who helps with homework? If it's the grandmother or a neighbor, you may want to include them as a Preferred Contact, so that they can receive Broadcast messages, even if the student lives in another household.
- If a parent's number is wrong in SchoolStatus, you can mark it with a red flag on the student card, and type in the new number, to assist the database administrator of your student information system in updating the number. They can then "unflag" the contact once the new number has been changed in your system. Be sure to alert your school information system administrator when you need a number changed or added; once they make the change, it should appear after our overnight sync. We only import contact information from your district system- we do not have the ability to enter new contacts, original numbers or email addresses into SchoolStatus for you.
- If a parent contact replies STOP to your text or Broadcast, this will immediately trigger a message to them (from us) asking them to confirm that they want to cut off communication with that teacher. (This does not cut them off from other educators who may contact them.) If they have sent STOP in error, they can type in RESUME to open the line of communication again. If they are unable to reply, perhaps because they deleted the message thread, they can request in writing for us to activate the RESUME on their behalf.
- Manage Preferred Contacts (those who do not wish to receive any Broadcast messages) by using these steps to remove the yellow star: https://help.schoolstatus.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025474072-Select-Preferred-Contacts-for-students-with-a-Star
- Set the Preferred Language for contacts, so that you can communicate effectively with everyone. Messages sent using SchoolStatus can be translated manually, too.
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Tip: if you have a complicated message to send in a language you don't speak fluently, use our tools, or an independent tool like Google Translate, to convert your thoughts from English to the preferred language and back before you send it, to make sure it says exactly what you want it to say.
Need help? We're here for you! https://help.schoolstatus.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025476232-Getting-Help