ParentSquare and Canva: Where Form Meets Function in K-12 Communications

Effective school communication relies on more than just words.

To stand out in a busy digital world, your communications need to be visually appealing, unique, and engaging.

Making that happen is a challenge for every K-12 communications department, especially for “one-person shops” or those with limited budgets. That’s why ParentSquare is proud to be working with Canva to make life easier for school communicators who need to capture the attention of busy parents.

Our recent webinar with Canva explored how our partnership empowers K-12 professionals to elevate their ParentSquare Posts and Smart Sites pages without sacrificing the accessibility and equity features central to the ParentSquare platform. 

ParentSquare team members Ivana Grimsley and Nathan James welcomed Canva’s Amy DeLair for a conversation on how ParentSquare customers can benefit from its partnership with Canva.

Here are a few big ideas from our webinar panel on how ParentSquare customers can take advantage of our partnership with Canva.

Create ParentSquare Posts that capture attention

The ParentSquare feed is where your community connects. To ensure that your announcements stand out, you can leverage Canva’s powerful and easy-to-use design tools to create eye-catching posts in minutes.

• Save time with ParentSquare Canva templates: Search for “ParentSquare” in Canva templates and find prebuilt templates for popular K-12 use cases that you can just download and add to your posts.
  
• Make staying “on brand” easy: Create brand kits in Canva to store district and school logos, colors, and fonts—so anyone creating posts can stay aligned with your brand guidelines.
  
• Create unique visual elements: Design custom headers to break up text or use Canva’s element library to add motion, icons, and visual interest to your posts.

Create a school website that tells your story with ParentSquare Smart Sites

Your school website should reflect who you are. With ParentSquare Smart Sites and Canva, it’s easy to design pages that showcase your community, express your brand, and bring your story to life.

• Create dynamic webpages with a few clicks: ParentSquare’s robust collection of Smart Sites page layout designs and components, combined with Canva’s ability to create animated graphics, lets you create amazing website pages without a graphic designer. Build motion graphics quickly and simply within Canva and add them to your ParentSquare website to create eye-catching webpages.
  
• Design unique elements that enhance your brand: Want to create an animated version of your district logo? How about scrolling header images that show off your students, faculty, or campus? What about animated photo carousels to showcase classroom learning activities? You can create all of this and so much more – the only limit is your imagination!

Simplify your website content management

ParentSquare Smart Sites and Canva are both powerful on their own, but the technical links that connect the two make life easier for ParentSquare customers:

• Access your Canva creations easily: Just press the “Upload From Canva” button on the ParentSquare Smart Sites text editor to bring your Canva graphics into your ParentSquare website.

• Automated workflows: Once you import a design from Canva, it is stored in your Smart Sites image library, and any alt text you applied at upload time is automatically applied going forward.