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

Cybersecurity, like charity, begins at home 

Key points:

We are living at a time when many of the most advanced, profitable, technologically-sophisticated companies in the world are barely treading water when it comes to cybersecurity. With that being the case, what chance do our children have of staving off these threats?

More than half of U.S. children now possess their own smartphone by the age of 11. And long before they have a device of their own, they’re using their parents’—to play games, to watch movies, to do their homework. That’s not to mention the panoply of devices they interact with at school, at friends’ homes, at after-school activities — on and on and on.…Read More

Texting is negatively impacting students’ writing

Key points:

“because she wants to have fun”

This was an eighth-grade student’s response to a question I posed in a reading response assignment tied to the play, “The Diary of Anne Frank.” The question asked was: “Why does Anne hide Peter’s shoes?” Technically, the student is correct–Anne hides Peter’s shoes because she is bored and tired of being cooped up in the small apartment she is forced to hide in. The student understands the underlying motives driving the character’s behavior here. But there are some problems with this response.…Read More

Your top 5 school-home communication challenges, solved

Key points:

Implementing a unified communication solution focused on family engagement provides school districts with multiple benefits. An intuitive, easy-to-use program can standardize communication between school and home, for example, and increase overall family engagement.

Selecting the right K-12 communications platform that supports the needs of everyone and is purpose-built to engage families can save everyone time, increase technology adoption, save money, and diminish or eliminate any confusion.…Read More

Lumio and Canva for Education Announce All-New Integration to Bring Immersive Digital Learning to Life

CALGARY, AB – Lumio, the digital learning tool used by millions of teachers and students worldwide, is pleased to announce its integration with Canva for Education. This new integration allows teachers to seamlessly add Canva designs to Lumio, merging the power of Canva’s visual communication platform with Lumio’s ability to add interactivity for engaging, dynamic lessons.  

The integration offers educators’ free access to export and upload Canva lessons, presentations, and other materials into Lumio to create interactive lessons with game-based activities, formative assessments, and more. Educators will also be able to access libraries from both Canva and Lumio to explore thousands of high-quality, ready-made templates and infographics.

“The Lumio team is excited to roll out our integration with Canva for Education,” said Dan McMahon, Lumio Vice President of Software. “This collaboration reinforces our commitment to inspiring creativity, saving teachers’ time, and creating an active learning environment that is accessible and collaborative for all.”…Read More

Rise Vision Named “Student Safety Solution Provider of The Year” in 2023 EdTech Breakthrough Awards Program

(June 08, 2023) –– Rise Vision, the #1 digital signage software solution for schools, announced that it has been named “Student Safety Solution Provider of The Year” in the 5th annual EdTech Breakthrough Awards program conducted by EdTech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies and solutions in the global educational technology market.

Rise Vision helps schools improve communication and safety, increase student involvement, celebrate student achievements, and create a positive school culture. Rise Vision provides easy to use technology, which educators are able to use to manage communications across districts.

Rise Vision offers over 500+ professionally designed, animated, and customizable templates. In addition, through popular integrations, users are able to automatically pull content from services like Google Slides, Canva, Twitter, and more.…Read More

How our school handled the chaos of an active shooter hoax

Key points:

  • Every moment is critical during a school emergency, and having the right tools is a must
  • An emergency response app helped one school leader receive and deploy clear communication

I was in a meeting when I heard the sirens. I immediately excused myself and saw the first squad car screech to a halt in front of our doors and knew it was bad. The police department had just received a call saying there was an active shooter somewhere at Spanish Fork High School and two students were deceased.  

As it turns out, we were the victim of a coordinated hoax that targeted schools throughout Utah and other states, but for the next 24 minutes, this was our reality and as principal, I had to act. My emotions almost got the better of me; not only do I care deeply about each and every one of our 1,469 students, I also have a daughter who was in class just down the hall. I almost lost my motor skills but was able to pull my phone from my pocket to instantly lock down the school with the push of a button and watch our emergency plan unfold almost flawlessly before my eyes.   …Read More