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District shows ParentSquare rollout; staff say platform reaches 99.4% of families
Summary
A district technology/communications presenter demonstrated ParentSquare features, saying the district can contact about 99.4% of families and that the tool supports multilingual messaging, volunteer signups, forms and optional payments; trustees asked about data security and payment fees.
A district presenter reviewed the district’s use of ParentSquare at the Nov. 24 board meeting, describing it as a consolidated communications platform that supports multilingual messaging, forms, RSVPs, volunteer signups and (optionally) payments.
The presenter said ParentSquare synchronizes with the district student information system and allows the district to see who is being reached and by what method. "So we are able to contact at least 99.4% of our families, whether that be email, text or, yeah, email or text or voice or voice message," the presenter said. Features highlighted included smart alerts, the ability to send school‑wide announcements, two‑way messaging and a district dashboard that shows contactability and engagement by school.
Trustees raised questions about fees for the payment feature (the presenter called that functionality a "wish list" and said ParentSquare partners with payment processors such as Stripe), firewall and security concerns, and how reach metrics are tabulated. The presenter said reach data derives from ParentSquare’s message delivery and bounce reporting and that the district is still fine‑tuning which features to use.
The district did not take formal action on ParentSquare at this meeting; the presentation was informational and staff said they would continue to monitor metrics and safety integration with district IT systems.
