Granite School District adopts Focus communications module to consolidate messaging
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Summary
The Granite School District trustees heard a presentation on the district's new communications module from Focus, which will combine attendance calls, grades, two-way messaging and translation into one platform for parents and staff. Board members asked about rollout, pilot testing, Canvas integration and reporting features.
The Granite School Board on Wednesday heard a presentation on a new districtwide communications module from Focus that the district says will consolidate attendance alerts, grades, email, text and two-way messaging into a single platform for parents, students and staff.
District staff described the module as an added communications layer that "piggybacks" on the district's existing Focus student-information system and said the switch aims to reduce the number of separate apps parents and teachers must use. "The biggest reason we switched was 2 way messaging," said Rick, a staff member presenting the product. "This product allows us to do that where our prior solution did not." He added the new platform includes message templates, scheduled messages, polls and sign-ups, automatic translation into more than 100 languages and mass-notification features for emergencies.
District officials said rollout began with administrator training and will expand to teachers and families before the school year starts. "As schools get comfortable and familiar with it, we're gonna see them drop other platforms that they've used to just use this one," Rick said, noting the prior vendor contract ended June 30 and the new contract began July 1. School staff will continue to be allowed to use third-party tools such as ClassDojo during the transition, presenters said.
Board members asked about pilot testing, Canvas integration and whether parents should download a new app. Board Member Julie asked for a timeline and how to tell families to connect; Rick said parents who already use the district app (listed as the Granite SD app in the presentation) will begin receiving messages through it as the district activates features. "Parents currently already have messaging will pass through there," Rick said.
Several trustees pressed for a pilot or phased rollout. "We literally just rolled it out to administrators," Rick said. He explained the district avoided a larger pilot because it could not afford to pay for two products at once. Board Member Chris and others urged the district to ensure the new system provides the same prior functionality and to resolve known integration issues.
Board members also asked about the district's ability to keep records of communications and to provide reporting. Rick said the module stores sent messages and can produce archived records for email, phone and app messages, which staff said will help the district respond when parents ask what was communicated.
On technical questions, staff said single sign-on and rostering will be supported to simplify setup for students and teachers. Rick said two-way texting outside the app is a feature Focus is developing but not yet available; two-way messaging currently works through the Focus app.
Board members and staff framed the addition as an incremental improvement rather than a sudden replacement. "We are not restricting [teachers] at this point in time," Rick said. He encouraged principals and administrators to move teachers away from multiple third-party apps as they become comfortable with Focus. The district plans further school-level support and training during July and August ahead of the academic year.
Several trustees noted emergency notifications will still be sent via phone and text in addition to the app push. "Even if someone's opted out, emergency still comes through," Rick said.
The board did not take a formal vote on the communications contract during the meeting; staff said the contract change took effect July 1 and the presentation was informational and part of implementation planning.
