Family engagement can sometimes feel like a snow leopard: elusive, but beautiful when you encounter it. Yet, virtually all research points to the fact that having parents and caregivers engaged in their kids’ education is hugely beneficial. With all of the potential barriers to creating and maintaining meaningful connection, teachers need a solution that works for them, their classrooms, and the larger school international journal community.
While many districts use a learning management system (or LMS) that also has some messaging features, teachers often need something different for more targeted or personalized communication with families. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of choices when it comes to parent-teacher communication apps vying to answer this call. For the most part, many of these apps overlap in their core features: All of these tools let you target communications, translate messages, and allow parents to sign up in multiple ways. Most offer a free version and may also let you attach files. Some provide just about every feature you can imagine and more, while others are more streamlined.
After lots of research and testing, we chose one platform because it offers excellent versions of the core features found in many apps, and because it’s accessible to all communities. We’ve also called out a handful of other great tools that have some standout features you might find useful. We hope this info can help you narrow down your selection according to your classroom or school’s specific needs.