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Parents and schools must be able to communicate easily for the sake of the students. However, because both parents and school staff members are busy, keeping the lines of communication open can be a struggle. Fortunately, thanks to advances in technology, such as the development of texting systems, schools can maintain a stronger connection with students' parents than ever before.

Benefits of Solid Home-School Communication

When the school and the home can communicate easily, everyone involved will benefit. Some of the advantages of regular, meaningful communication include:

• Practicality. - In some cases, strong communication between parents and schools is necessary for practical or logistical purposes. For example, if an after-school activity is canceled, the school needs to be able to inform parents as quickly as possible. If school is being dismissed early, parents need to know immediately.
  
  
• Increased parent involvement. - When parents are engaged in two-way communication with the school, they are more likely to be involved in school-related activities, as well as their child's education.
  
  
• Improved student outcomes. - Studies have shown that family involvement is linked to improved student achievement.
  
  

Parent Communication Priorities

According to a survey conducted by the National School Public Relations Association:

• Parents prefer electronic communications from schools, such as texting and emails, over paper-based communication.
  
  
• Parents preferred email and text-based communication over communication via social media.
  
  
• When it comes to communication from the school, parents prioritize their child's progress in school and/or struggles, information on how well the school is performing as a whole, schools closings or schedule changes and information about special events.
  
  

School Communication Priorities

Schools also have preferences when it comes to communication with students' parents. For most schools, preferences include:

• Easy, time-efficient communications. - Teachers, administrators and other staff members are busy, and they have very little time to spend on communication. As a result, they tend to prefer quick, easy methods of mass communication.
  
  
• The ability to reach most or all parents. - When important decisions are made, such as the closing of the school for inclement weather, schools want to be able to reach most or all of the parents instantaneously.
  
  
• Cost effectiveness. - Most schools are already dealing with a tight budget, so they want to be able to communicate with parents cost effectively.

Texting Systems Simplify Communication

When schools need to communicate with students' parents, texting is the most natural choice. According to Pew Research Center, as many as 90 percent of adults owned a cell phone in January of 2014. Since then, the number has only risen. Furthermore, 67 percent of people check their phones throughout the day even if they haven't heard an audible notification. Some of the ways schools can use texting to communicate with parents include:

• Sending reminders for PTA meetings, fundraisers and other events.
  
  
• Sending reminders to parents who haven't turned in essential paperwork.
  
  
• Collecting information from parents.
  
  
• Informing parents when schedules change or school is canceled.
  
  
• Reminding parents of upcoming holidays.
  
  
• Communicating with parents about student grades, behavior problems or absences.
  
  
• Receiving messages from parents when students are going to be absent for the day.
  
  

Texting is also both time and cost effective. Schools can create and send messages quickly without wasting paper, printer ink or other expensive resources.

Using Mass Texting for Home-School Communication

Schools can use Trumpia's mass texting service to communicate with parents instantaneously on virtually any topic. Using Trumpia's software, schools can create short messages and distribute them to a list of phone numbers in seconds. Mass texting can also be used to send scheduled reminders and collect important information from parents via survey. In addition, Trumpia allows schools to create multiple lists of recipients for targeted communication. For example, your school can create a separate list of numbers for parents of football players and use it to distribute information related to practices and games.

To get establish a texting system for your school, please contact Trumpia today. We also offer text to landline service, MMS software and more to help you improve your relationship with your students' parents.

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