SchoolMessenger: Alerts and Updates
The SchoolMessenger platform functions slightly different for families, community and staff. Please select your user group above to learn more.
SchoolMessenger provides options for parents and guardians, employees and community members to receive news and updates for routine school and district level communications, along with weather-related and other emergency updates. We also use SchoolMessenger to connect with parents and guardians for automated attendance calls.
Parents and guardians are automatically be enrolled to receive these updates from the school or schools their children attend. Parents and guardians also can create a SchoolMessenger account to manage your preferences for how you receive updates (phone, text and/or email), but this is not necessary to receive messages.
Parents and guardians, please make sure we have your current email, and home and cell phone numbers, on file in SchoolTool, whether or not you wish to make a SchoolMessenger account. If you are unsure whether we have your current email, please contact your child's school. For more information, please review the "additional information" section below, as well as the individual instruction pages for families, staff and community members.
SchoolMessenger replaced School News Notifier (SNN), which was retired in June 2021.
Reaching more of our families
Parents and guardians do not need to create an account in order to receive messages. All parents and guardians associated with a student in our schooltool database will automatically receive email updates for school news, automated attendance calls, and phone calls and emails for emergency notifications. Parents and guardians can also receive SMS (text message) alerts for emergency notifications without creating an account, as long as their cell phone number is on file in schooltool, and they have opted in (simply text "Y" or "yes" to 67587). For parents and guardians, creating a SchoolMessenger account simply improves the functionality, allowing you to add additional contact information and customize preferences.
Multiple channels of communication
SchoolMessenger will not only provide email updates, but will also give stakeholders the option to sign up for automated calls and text alerts.
Synchronized with SchoolTool
All the contact information for parents and guardians is pulled directly from SchoolTool, our student information database. This means that parents and guardians will only need to update their contact information in SchoolTool, and it will then populate to SchoolMessenger. You are also free to add additional contact numbers and emails within SchoolMessenger.
Customizable streamlined preferences
You can pick and choose what news you want to get, and how you want to receive it. The new streamlined categories of updates are: emergency, district news, school news and attendance. For example, you can choose to receive district-level updates through email only, but school-level updates through email and text message. By default, all families will receive the following for each school a child attends:
- Emergency broadcasts: will be sent to all phone and email contacts in schooltool, as well as SMS text messaging if the number on file has opted in
- District news broadcasts: will be sent to emails and phone numbers on file
- School news broadcasts: will be sent to emails and phone numbers on file
- Attendance calls: will be made to the primary phone number on file
Improved school association
Parents and guardians will no longer need to manual add and remove schools as students advance from elementary to middle to high school. Your contact records will automatically be associated with whatever school you currently have a child enrolled in. Staff members will also be automatically associated with the building(s) they work in, and community members are free to sign up to pick and choose which schools they want to receive updates for. If you are a parent or guardian who is interested in receiving updates for other schools in the district that your children do not attend, you are also welcome to create an account through the community subscriber portal, and sign up for as many buildings as you would like.
Room to grow: two-way communication
In addition to being used as a district and school notification service, SchoolMessenger also includes they capability for two-way communication at the classroom level. As staff and families become more familiar with the platform, we will look to roll this feature out universally.
