Our primary business here at Testify Communications is to help organizations (1) increase donations and (2) effectively communicate with their target audience. One of our newest clients is a school in Southeastern Michigan.
So what are you doing? Letting kids text in the classroom? Well, we’re glad you asked.
Yes, text messaging could be used in the classroom or as a way for teachers to get in front of their students, outside of the classroom, but we are using it to get messages directly to the parents by circumventing the students in the process. Here’s how it works:
- Parent A signs up to receive mobile alerts from their child’s school.
- Parent A receives messages from school about half days, report cards, parent teacher conferences…all the things older students do not want their parents to know about.
- Student A (Parent A’s child) skips 1st hour: Parent A receives a text at the beginning of 2nd hour informing them their child is/was absent.
- Student A has a disciplinarian problem and get’s suspended: Parent A receives a text and phone call about the situation and a reminder text about the upcoming conference with the Dean of Students.
These are a few examples of what we are doing to keep parents in abreast of everything they need to know regarding their child’s school experience. Before approaching schools with this idea, we talked to parents first; here’s what some had to say:
“I love the idea of receiving up-to-the-minute updates about my child’s behavior.”
“My kid always forgets to bring home classroom notes and flyers from school. This would certainly help me get the information I need.”
“It would be ideal to receive a text message in the morning informing me that school’s closed [for weather emergency] than to sit in front of the TV waiting to see it on the news.”
The examples mentioned above are what we strive to help schools effectively address. One of the awesome things about our text program is that it is web-based, this means an administrator can send a weather emergency text message from any computer with internet access.
Does our program interest you? Would you love to receive this type of communication from your child’s school? Are you a school administrator and think text messaging would be a great fit for your school?
Give us a call at 313.202.6756 or email us to set up a 30-45 minute appointment. We’d love to hear from you and help you connect, communicate, and contribute.
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