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Parents press South Whidbey communications director on ParentsSquare, website and social‑media moderation
Summary
Parents and district communications staff discussed ParentSquare app limitations, website mobile optimization, the district’s removal of comments from social posts, and ideas to recruit parent and student testers and interns to improve usability.
Parents at a South Whidbey School District "Coffee with the Principal" meeting pressed the district’s Communications Director about usability of ParentsSquare, the district website and mobile access, and sought clearer options for engagement.
The Communications Director explained the district cannot directly change the ParentsSquare app layout and must submit requests to the vendor for wider updates. “We don't have any control over changing anything in ParentsSquare... we can't change the way it looks and so every time... we have to contact ParentsSquare,” the Communications Director said. She urged attendees to email specific pages that are not working so staff can report them to the vendor for fixes.
Attendees raised mobile usability concerns and analytics: the Communications Director noted many users access tools via phones and said app functionality can differ from desktop. She encouraged parents to send examples of problems and suggested recruiting parent volunteers or high‑school students for periodic site testing and proofreading; she said students could earn volunteer hours or internships for some work.
The director also defended the district’s decision in many cases to disable comments on district social posts, citing limited staff capacity to monitor and respond: “I can't I don't have the time to answer comments and to monitor it,” she said, recommending that residents email questions to district contacts instead of using post comments.
District staff highlighted other communications tools: Pickup Patrol (elementary-level attendance/transportation messages) was singled out as working well for quick alerts, while Grades 6–12 use ParentsSquare for attendance and excusal requests. Staff said most meetings are recorded and posted to YouTube to accommodate parents who cannot attend in person.
The Communications Director invited more community feedback and offered to coordinate volunteers to test the website and provide suggestions for improving searchability and mobile presentation.
