After years of students, parents and teachers attempting to balance Schoology, Remind, Group Me and various other communication systems, Homewood City Schools has addressed the longstanding need for change. Parent Square is the new district-wide communication platform designed to reduce this disorganization in messaging efforts.
Merrick Wilson, Communications Director of Homewood City Schools, has been a major factor in implementing Parent Square as the district’s new uniform messaging system. Wilson works closely with people at all levels of the school system from board members to teachers and students, and is confident that this platform will reduce any past confusion with communication expectations. From district-wide announcements to sports teams and even student-run clubs, all school-sanctioned groups are expected to adopt Parent Square.
“Our hope is that the unified platform will be a place where parents know they will be able to get all of the information they need,” Wilson said. “Whether that be from the district, child’s school, or individual teachers, our goal is to make it easier on everyone and cut down on confusion.”
Not only does Parent Square eliminate the need for outside messaging systems, but it also has various features that are tailored to the platform’s school-specific purpose.
“One of the things we love about Parent Square is that it also has calendars, directories and volunteer sign-ups built into it,” Wilson said. “That helps eliminate the need for things like Sign Up Genius which aren’t built specifically for school usage.”
While Parent Square has a considerable list of benefits, including translation devices, transitioning the entire school district and the hundreds of communication factions into one uniform system has proven challenging.
HHS Technology Specialist Kristin Clark is responsible for the transition in the high school specifically. Due to the higher number of student organizations, the high school poses a larger problem than the lower schools in terms of Group Me and alternate communication platforms.
“Before, with communication to our families and our teachers, there were a lot of pieces missing,” Clark said. “For clubs and organizations, sports and our teachers all needing to send out information, there was just a lack in the area of organization.”
The decision to adopt this new system did not happen overnight. The district has conducted a multi-year process of research and testing to determine what would work best for HCS. While many people adapted to the confusion of the old communication system in HCS, Parent Square promises to provide a much easier way to get the necessary information.
Clark estimates that it will take some time, but she feels HHS is close to making the permanent change to Parent Square.
“We’ve done the onboarding and initial training for staff and coaches,” Clark said, “The next step will be training our club sponsors and student leaders. We then really need to get the ball rolling with students and get them on board with what Student Square is about.”
Confusion regarding the differences between the separate Parent Square and Student Square apps has raised some questions. Clark says they are essentially the same, but teachers must use Parent Square to access certain features that are programmed both to their teacher account and the app specifically. Simply log in with your PowerSchool username and password to begin receiving updates.
