USD 443 staff outline move to ParentSquare Engage to replace TalkingPoints

District staff on Monday told the USD 443 Board of Education they plan to replace the district’s current messaging platform, TalkingPoints, with ParentSquare’s Engage product and to roll the district’s website and communications under ParentSquare’s suite.

The staff presentation described Engage as a single platform that supports posts, calendars, secure forms, volunteer and conference sign‑ups, automatic translation and analytics that show whether parents have received and opened communications. "This will replace TalkingPoints," said Victor, a district staff member leading the demonstration. He said the district has already imported demographic data and that the system will sync with the district’s student information system, Skyward, on a 24‑hour cycle.

Administrators said the district expects better group management for activities such as bus routes and extracurricular groups, automated conference-signup workflows, and per‑post analytics that show delivery and open rates. Victor said ParentSquare supports multiple notification channels — app push, text, email and even phone calls — and can try alternate channels if delivery fails.

Why it matters: District leaders said the change addresses recurring staff complaints about group management and the need for better delivery analytics and multilingual support. Diana, a district staff member, told the board she will provide a list of target languages; staff noted TalkingPoints currently supports about 27 active languages for USD 443 families.

How it will be implemented: Regina, a district staff member working on the website refresh, described parallel work to remake the district website and move the district’s communication features under the ParentSquare umbrella. Staff described an initial training plan for building‑level users and said they are piloting the Engage features with selected employees and schools before wider rollout.

Costs and contracting: Victor told the board the district expects ParentSquare to cost about $35,000–$37,000 per year. He further said the district’s current TalkingPoints contract runs about $45,000 annually, so the change would yield both new features and lower recurring costs. The presentation said ParentSquare will host district data; Victor said the platform is hosted off‑site and that data will be included under ParentSquare’s security protections.

Board questions and staff responses: Board members asked whether parents could comment publicly on posts and how translation works. Victor said comment threads are effectively private between the parent and school staff on a given post, not visible to other parents. Diana said staff will review language options including Arabic, Vietnamese and Mayan languages and will provide counts by language for the board to review.

Next steps: Staff said they will continue training, finalize rollout plans and return with more implementation details. No motion or contract award was taken at Monday’s meeting.