sure to check with your superintendent and
board policies regarding social media use in
your schools.
Student Information System (SIS): We
regularly use our messaging system with
pre-scheduled recorded messages for mini-
mum days, special events and holidays. I
have found that by voice recording our mes-
sages, we have a better chance of fewer hang-
ups. Families like to hear from the principal,
and students will often say, “You called my
house!” Our district uses the Infinite Cam-
pus SIS (www.infinitecampus.com).
School webpages: When families and the
community want to know about a school or
district, they usually begin with a Google
search. It is important that your webpages
stay up-to-date. Find someone in your
school who can be the webpage guru to
keep your site accurate and current. We are
migrating to SchoolBlocks (www.school-
blocks.com) this year and are excited to cre-
ate pages that will encourage our parents to
connect and engage. Google Sites (https://
sites.google.com) also has great templates
for your site or teachers to use to share and
communicate.
Twitter: We use Twitter (twitter.com)
for on-the-go posts and texts. You can fol-
low our school at @StandardElem. This is
a quick and easy way to share pictures and
updates. We use a few apps to help create
visually stimulating posts, including Pho-
togrid (https://photo-grid.en.softonic.com/
web-apps) and AdobeSpark (https://spark.
adobe.com). We also convert the PDF ver-
sions of school newsletters and f liers into
JPEGs to upload on Twitter. If parents do
not have a Twitter account, we encourage
them to sign up for the Twitter text mes-
sages option (https://support.twitter.com/
articles/20169920).
Facebook and Instagram (PTA driven):
Our small but busy PTA makes sure to
duplicate and promote all of the school
events on their social media pages. Face-
book (www.facebook.com) can be one of a
school’s greatest assets in sharing celebra-
tions and events with the community. We
also know it can be a sounding board for the
disgruntled. Our goal is to use the “power
of positive.” We share with parents how to
connect and post using our hashtags when
“Our goal is to meet families where they are. We inform parents of
the various ways we share important information, school updates
on events and other pertinent topics through digital sources.”
they attend school events. We have also im-
plemented the monitoring feature, where we
have oversight in the posts for both of these
platforms (www.instagram.com).
School sign: Though this may not seem
like much, many of our community are
without vehicles and walk by our school
regularly. We use a digital marquee to adver-
tise events and encourage them to follow our
social media accounts. It is in a highly visible
location that updates on a weekly basis.
Digital media for staff
Both classified and certificated staff are
rapidly and regularly using digital media
for work and life. Our goal is to lighten the
paper load and get everyone on the same
digital page. The district provides regular
training for staff through the district and
our ed tech mentors (staff-on-stipends), as
well as through a technology and learning
district conference at the beginning of the
school year. Staff is also encouraged to at-
tend technology training conferences and
workshops throughout the year.
Google Classroom: Our district became
a Google Apps for Education district al-
most five years ago. In that time, we have
equipped every student, K-8, and nearly
every teacher with a Chromebook. To en-
courage staff to use Google Classroom
(https://classroom.google.com) with their
classes, we have a “classroom” for our entire
staff. Each staff member joins as a student,
and administration serves as the teacher.
This has worked great to post the weekly
bulletin, hyperlinked documents to staff
meetings and professional developments,
and to share staff “shout-outs” for praises
and celebrations. It is also a great place to
share encouragement and words of inspira-
tion.
Group texts and emails: While this may
be an obvious choice, we find that there re-
main educators who do not group text or
email to share information. We also find
that many staff require reminders to check
their email daily and frequently. Email re-
mains the primary source of communication
on our campus.
Remind App: As a school leader, I created
a group in the Remind App (www.remind.
com) to communicate quickly and for emer-
gencies. Every teacher and classified staff is
encouraged to join the group. We have had
to use this for lockdowns, loss of power or
water issues, and even school precautionary
evacuations. Rather than trying to gather a
group text in the midst of a crisis, this app
allows us to push information out quickly.
Recipients can reply, but this message goes
only to the sender, not the entire group. It
has been a very efficient and cost-effective
way to communicate and get to-the-minute
updates to staff in crisis situations.
With the ever-growing options in digital
and social media, we will continue to learn
and use new resources to reach out to fami-
lies to build the home/school relationship.
Parents will continue to be encouraged to
get involved and stay current in the academic
lives of their students. Our job as schools
and districts is to streamline those pathways
of communication, and continue to share
our message of academic progress, student
growth and success. Stay positive, stay cur-
rent and stay connected.
Susan Denton is the principal at Standard
Middle School
March | April 2019
17