2020: Year In Review

2020 impacted absolutely everyone. For our schools and educators, it meant not only taking care of themselves but also supporting students and many times their families—every single day. We witnessed schools pivot from being institutions of learning to provide critical support services. We saw the countless food drives, letters of emotional support to parents and students, schools serving as daycares, and even providing COVID-19 testing onsite.

We are honored to play a small role in serving you in these times of need. Allow me to walk you through our year at ParentSquare.

Pandemic Response

In January/February, we paid close attention to the pandemic news and ramped up our capacity behind-the-scenes. This preparation paid off, and there were zero service interruptions as our schools transitioned to remote learning! As the transition happened, we had to quickly shift our focus to serve new needs.

Product enhancements for remote learning scenarios included:

• Enhanced support for videos: all formats, increased size, and embedded play.

• Organization of shared learning material with Resource Hub

• Integration with Learning Explorer to easily incorporate OERs

• COVID-19 Health Screening Form for back-to-school. To date: over 4 million screenings and counting!

Our Customer Success team:

• Solved over 48,000 questions with an average response of 83 minutes!

• Onboarded over 450 districts with love and care

Our Content team spent countless hours researching and brought to you:

• Using CARES Act Funds white paper to secure funding for ParentSquare

• COVID-19 Tip A Day blog and social media posts for over 30 days

Big Rocks

We made great strides this year, and it’s all thanks to you—the amazing schools and districts that we serve. Here are our biggest accomplishments from 2020!

• Won an SIIA CODiE for Best Collaborative Community Solution for Educators and the EdTech Cool Tools Award for Best Parent/Student Solution.

• Acquired Signal Kit LLC, a similar product, and gained the privilege of being the embedded communications offerings of Aeries SIS and Aequitas Solutions.

• Increased our presence to 40% of districts in California and key markets like New York, Connecticut, and Indiana, where we are now in 10% of districts. This brings us to 4 million+ users nationwide!

• We expanded our team by 48% with the most additions on our Tech team!

• Raised $7 million in funding to bring effective school-to-home communications to even more K-12 schools and districts nationwide.

Other Product Updates

Aside from the many pandemic-related product features and improvements mentioned above, there were other important updates this past year.

• Our new permissions interface improves the district role/permissions user interface, shifting to a more visual, flexible way to manage permissions.

• Single Digest Text or Email gives control to users associated with multiple schools to receive a single digest each day instead of one per site.

• Conference Sign-ups can be set up at the school and classroom level to support schools using this feature for socially distant pick ups and drop offs.

• Notification Preferences allows users to fine-tune notifications more than ever for ParentSquare messages and posts to match their preferences.

• Mobile Document Scanning makes it easy for parents to send signed documents back to school.

Fresh Content

We are committed to creating valuable content for educators across all topics concerning parent engagement. Here’s a list of our featured content from 2020:

• Superintendents Speak: Communication Leadership in Non-Stop Change

• How Remote Learning Expanded Parents’ Role in K-12 Education

• 7 Ways to Maximize Parent Support When K-12 Goes Back to School

• 12 Ways to Thank Teachers During School Closures

• Serving Your K-12 Community During a Crisis and Beyond

What’s Coming Next

In 2020 we had plans to ‘Make it Better’, fine-tuning what already existed, but we had to shift priorities due to the pandemic. We want to get back on track in 2021. We are starting with the launch of our most ambitious and exciting product: Pure Contact. Stay tuned for more information very soon!

• Direct messaging enhancements—including delivery stats

• Forms and permission slips with translations and payment integrations

• Voice calls to and by teachers—including office hours

• Support for community members and website widgets for community groups

• And many more partnerships and integrations

We look forward to 2021, and, just like you, we hope and pray that the new year brings an end to the pandemic. But until it does, it’s important to find ways to connect, feel human, and remember that it’s the little things that can make a big difference.

With gratitude from Santa Barbara, CA
Anu
Founder, ParentSquare