Organizing an event for your child's school can be frustrating if you can't keep everyone involved informed. Since you have to rely on others to provide food for fundraisers, entertainment, materials and supplies, you may need to schedule a few meetings to make sure everyone is on the same page. What was supposed to be an easy and fun event can quickly turn into a communication nightmare. Teachers face the same frustration when scheduling conferences with parents. But it doesn't have to be this way.
Reap the Benefits of Technology
Whether you're a teacher, parent volunteer or school administrator, use the technology available to make staying in contact with other teachers, parents and administrators as easy as possible.
Remember phone trees and contact lists that contained the names and numbers of all the people involved in organizing an event? Remember having to call each one to remind them of an upcoming meeting or to ask for help? Remember all the time you spent leaving messages on answering machines or having to call people back because they were too busy to take your call? That was a lot of work, wasn't it?
Even if you currently use email to stay in contact, you have to hope people check their email often – especially if an emergency meeting is necessary or you need to cancel or reschedule. And there's nothing worse than an angry parent who shows up for a parent-teacher conference or volunteer meeting only to be told that it has been rescheduled.
These days sending mass text messages are the fastest way to reach most people. Make the most of this technology to send:
• Student performance updates
• Meeting changes/scheduling
• Event dates
• Reminders
Your Contact List Made Simpler
To make sure parents and other volunteers know exactly what's going on when it comes to school activities and participation, create a contact list to send updates, meeting times, event times and valuable information from your mobile phone – save time and money using a text message service. Simply create an account, import your list, buy the appropriate amount of credits and send. That's it.
Other Benefits of Text Messaging
In addition to being able to contact people quickly, other benefits of bulk text messaging include:
• Spreading the word about upcoming fundraisers and other events
• Informing parents about upcoming tests, mid-terms and final exams
• Involving parents by asking for input
• Announcing awards/recognition of student achievement
• School event calendar updates/changes
• Holiday/days off changes/scheduling
• Emergency information/alerts/updates
• Changes to school/administrative policies
• Weather advisories
As you can see, using text messaging to provide news and information to parents and others is a great way to keep everyone informed.