Dive Brief:

• Two Wisconsin school districts — North Fond du Lac and Lomira —​ are using smartphone apps so families can stay in the loop about everything from student grades to school lunch offerings.
• The apps were created specifically for each district and can be tailored by parents so they will only receive information pertinent to their child and interests. 
• Lomira School District, which has had the app available for almost a year, was the second district in the state to adopt this sort of technology.

Dive Insight:

The smartphone apps used by these two districts highlight a growing trend to use technology to keep in touch with parents. For districts interested in utilizing similar approaches but not wanting to spend the money or time creating a school-specific app, Remind — a free text messaging program that allows for seamless communication between teachers, students, and parents — is always an option. Using the app, teachers can send assignment reminders, photos, and documents directly to the phones of students and their parents. More conveniently, Remind can be used in districts where it is not a given that everyone has a smartphone, since its messages can also go to text message OR email.

Recommended Reading

Associated Press by way of Pioneer Press: Eastern Wisconsin schools offer alerts via smartphone apps