Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

15 questions to ask when evaluating communications platforms

Key points:

  • Home-school communications systems help to build trust and establish consistency in a school community
  • Districts must be clear in their communications, and to do so, they must select the right platform
  • See related article: Your top 5 school-home communication challenges, solved

The importance of effective home-school communications has never been higher. Families expect to be kept informed of their child’s activities, academic progress, and expectations. However, confusion and frustration often ensue when messaging is not centralized or when individual messages contradict each other.

In today’s educational environment, it is vital the school or district have a clear message with leaders understanding exactly what is to be communicated. It is equally important that families trust the authenticity of the communications.…Read More

Big Deals: Advanced offerings in curriculum and data analytics, parent communication, remote tutoring, and more

Discovery Education this month acquired DreamBox Learning, a PK-12 education technology provider serving more than 6 million students and 600,000 educators nationwide. Headquartered in Bellevue, WA, DreamBox Learning offers the only dual-discipline solution rated “Strong” by Johns Hopkins University’s evidenceforESSA.org in both mathematics and reading. Through its adaptive learning solutions independently proven to accelerate student growth, DreamBox Learning empowers educators with data analytics and content-specific professional development solutions to complement instruction.

DreamBox Learning’s products complement Discovery Education’s other digital solutions, which include Discovery Education Experience, the company’s award-winning K-12 platform, the Techbook series of digital textbooks, Mystery Science, and more, in supporting student achievement. The acquisition of DreamBox Learning comes at a time when school districts are seeking comprehensive, yet consolidated platforms to address a wide range of core and supplemental learning needs, backed by research that underscores meaningful gains in achievement. The addition of DreamBox Learning’s intelligent adaptive learning technology to the Discovery Education suite will provide educators and students with more options for engaging, personalized learning experiences across a variety of disciplines.

DreamBox Learning will be Discovery Education’s most recent acquisition, joining Pivot Interactives and DoodleLearning, which were acquired in August of 2022, and Mystery Science, which was acquired in 2020. …Read More

5 reasons to use a one-stop-shop communications platform

Key points:

  • School communications platforms shouldn’t make communicating more complicated–they should ease a burden
  • The right platform can result in cost savings and can increase flexibility and consistency across a school district
  • See related article: Your top 5 school-home communication challenges, solved

When our School Administrative Unit (SAU) set out to find a communications platform that all six of its schools could use across all grades, we had good reason for doing so. For starters, our administrators were using one communication system and teachers were using a completely different system.

Teachers had to create their own distribution lists, which weren’t always current. For example, one might develop a distribution list at the start of the new school year but would get a new student in January and forget to add the new parents to the distribution list.…Read More

School safety concerns are on the rise as classrooms open

Key points:

More than half of teachers and parents are more worried about school safety than in previous years, according to the 2023 K-12 School Safety Report from Motorola Solutions, which captured sentiments from 1,000 K-12 parents and 1,000 K-12 educators across the United States.

The research reveals the most pressing concerns for those closest to school safety and highlights their perceptions about emergency preparedness plans, communication practices, school safety technologies, and training for teachers and students. …Read More

SchoolStatus Announces Acquisition of ClassTag Strengthening its Suite of K-12 Data, Workflow, and Communications

RIDGELAND, Miss. —  SchoolStatus, a leader in K-12 data and communications, announced today the acquisition of  ClassTag, a unified family communication and engagement platform for educators, schools, and districts.

This strategic acquisition expands SchoolStatus’ current offerings with a robust communications app that enables sharing of essential student-level data in streamlined and easy-to-use ways. ClassTag’s smart messages reach all families based on their preferred channel (SMS, email, app, web or paper) automatically translated into 100+ languages. Seeing all relevant student information in one place helps families stay informed and get involved.

Based in New York, ClassTag is a unified family engagement platform used by over 5 million families. The platform enables teachers to efficiently communicate and coordinate with families and provides school and district leaders with insights on effective ways to build school-home connections that improve student outcomes.…Read More

Closing the gap in school emergency response

Key points:

  • One of the biggest issues surrounding school emergency plans is a reliance on disparate and disconnected technologies
  • Automated emergency response and streamlined communications are two ways to improve school emergency response plans
  • See related article: How our school handled the chaos of an active shooter hoax

As school violence has reached a 20-year high, schools and first responders are feeling more pressure to make sure they’re prepared to respond to and resolve school safety incidents as quickly and effectively as possible.

When an emergency happens at a school, every second matters during the response. But communication and visibility gaps continue to hinder school officials and first responders and their ability to respond quickly in emergencies. The ability to effectively communicate during these incidents saves lives.…Read More

3 reasons to spend ESSER funds on school-home communications

Key points:

  • School-home communication is critical in boosting attendance and decreasing absenteeism
  • A thoughtful school communication plan is as important to good schooling as a great teacher
  • See related article: 5 ways video improves school-home communication

When you think about Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, do you think “HVAC?”

While ESSER funds were vital for making schools safer during the pandemic, they cover more than infrastructure. The true goal of ESSER funding is learning recovery, and the heart of learning recovery is attendance.…Read More

How school-home communication combats chronic absenteeism

Key points:

  • Societal challenges are contributing to students’ absenteeism
  • Remaining in consistent communication with adults and caregivers can help reduce chronic absenteeism
  • See related article: 5 ways video improves school-home communication

Adolescents are in crisis right now. Social media, pandemic isolation, gun violence, and structural racism have formed a perfect storm. It’s been so devastating to teens that the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Children’s Hospital Association together declared a national state of emergency in children’s mental health.

CDC data show 42 percent of teens feel “persistently sad or hopeless,” and 1 in 5 have seriously considered suicide. Just tally up the effects of the past few years. The number of anxious and depressed teens soared during and after the pandemic. The harmful impact of Instagram, particularly on adolescent girls, was all over the news. Recently, the Surgeon General issued a warning about social media, saying, “We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis.” While coming to school should be for learning and friendship, students are pausing to practice in case an active shooter bursts in, leading to a syndrome called vicarious traumatization.…Read More

3 ways to keep students reading this summer

Key points:

  • By fostering stronger educator and caregiver communication, students can be better equipped to retain learning this summer
  • In order to inspire a lifelong love reading, consider guiding students to identify reading opportunities that complement their interests in their daily lives
  • See related article: 6 ways to help reluctant readers become booklovers

It’s been great to see students’ faces back in-person collaborating with one another and their teachers, but there’s no doubt the pandemic has impacted their academic and emotional learning. Reading scores dipped considerably due to the pandemic, with fewer than half of students qualifying at their grade level standard.

Even more, we are facing a student mental health crisis, with studies showing nearly 8 million children worldwide lost a parent or primary caregiver to a pandemic-related cause. Educators continue to work hard to keep students motivated and engaged in learning to read while helping them cope with mental health challenges.…Read More