Like many school districts in Michigan, Caledonia Community Schools has an integrated school district-branded mobile app and website which work together seamlessly thanks to a partnership between Appazur and Foxbright.
Strategic Plan
When the app was announced, Superintendent Dr. Dedrick Martin said the app would be a “one stop shop” for families to get reliable information directly from the district. “Parents can look up their kids’ grades, the lunch menu, and whatever we sent out in emails gets pushed directly to their phones,” Martin said. “This is the next evolution of our organizational coherence goals in our strategic plan.”
One of the Superintendent’s overall goals was to improve overall communication between the schools and the community. “When I became the superintendent, communication was one of the issues identified by the board and community, getting the wrong information or misinformation over social media,” Martin said. “We listened a couple years back to focus groups from the community and our long-term goal is for a parent to get news and communication from their child’s school, directly to their phone.”
Parents can subscribe to their students’ school in the app to notifications, in addition to district-wide news which is published both via the app, and as email newsletters and Facebook posts.
Appazur + Foxbright Website + Social Media
Kelly Clark, the Communication & Public Relations Coordinator at Caledonia Community Schools, worked with Appazur to design the app, in sync with working with Foxbright on their new more user-friendly website.
Kelly has trained school staff to use social media. Thanks to Appazur’s Facebook integration, each building can simply post to Facebook, and parents will automatically receive push notifications via the Caledonia Community Schools app based on which schools that their children attend.
The team created an information sheet and put detailed instructions on their website to encourage parents and students to try the app. The local Sun and News newspaper covered the app launch.
Results
Now that information is published once, going out via the app, website, and social media, information is more readily available to parents. There are significantly fewer inquiries to the school, and parents often answer each other’s questions online. Kelly reports that it’s been an easy implementation for parents, and their feedback has been very positive.
Future
The Caledonia Community Schools app has now been integrated with SchoolMessenger as well. Going forward, the school district plans to use the app to engage more with the broader community, and make more use of Appazur’s Groups feature which allows parents to opt in to additional messages and information (e.g. PTA, athletics, clubs, etc.).
Appazur integrates with Foxbright school website news, calendars, pages, and the staff directory. Learn more at foxbright.com. Foxbright provides website design and hosting for K-12 schools, districts, and the educational organizations that support them.
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Caledonia Community Schools 8948 Kraft Ave SE Caledonia, MI 49316
