Family Engagement Skyrockets With ClassTag Connect

It goes without saying that the unexpected paradigm shift occurring within the past two school years gave us all so much to learn. One major lesson everyone can agree upon is that streamlined, customized communication is absolutely critical to family engagement. Gone need to be the days of multiple, fragmented channels that prove to be entirely inefficient. But, how can districts solve this problem? They can do so by implementing ClassTag Connect as their primary, all-in-one communications platform.

How ClassTag Connect Improves Family Engagement

Just how much of an impact can ClassTag Connect have on your own district and your school, teacher, and parent communications? Below are statistics from parent and district leader surveys showing the negative “before” and positive “after” effects of this platform. 

District leaders reported that 68% of parents were engaged in school communication before ClassTag Connect. While that might sound high, it still means that one in three families were not being reached. Or, put another way, one in three families were not engaged in their children’s academic activities. That’s a major problem and one that districts were desperately trying to fix. Truly, they were struggling to find an affordable solution to increase parental involvement. That is, until they implemented ClassTag Connect as their all-in-one family engagement solution. In fact, after adopting it, these same districts reported that their family participation rate jumped to, on average, 95%. 

What Parents Want With Communication Connections

Surveyed parents shared what they want with teacher, school, and district communication. First and foremost, 82.8% of parents declared that the communication they find most important, naturally, is from their child’s teacher. With this, 41.2%  said that daily communication is what they prefer. Also, a vast 93.6% of parents said that when they pose questions to anyone involved with the school, they expect a response within a few to 24 hours.

Finally, 48.2% of parents said there is one combination of criteria they use to evaluate parent communication effectiveness: one source of information, rapid response times, and relationships with teachers. Considering these statistics, if your own district’s teachers aren’t communicating enough, or within these measures, imagine the dissatisfaction parents may be feeling?

Family Engagement Issues & Resolutions

To start, previous communications left parents frustrated. One of the major complaints was that there were too many channels for them to keep up with. 66.1% of parents wanted their districts to implement one app for all main school communications. “It would be nice if all communications were on the same platform,” , “I wish all the teachers in the school would use the same app/method of communication,”and “I’d like one place to get information. “Having to check several sources is annoying and you miss information”.  Are your district’s messages getting lost in a mass communications mess? 

In addition, before ClassTag Connect, communications were not happening often enough from their child’s teacher, school, and district. However, in great contrast after the switch to ClassTag Connect, the reportings rose to a combined 78.9%  “consistent”/“very consistent” level. Also with this, teacher responsiveness to parent questions soared to 84.8% with “consistent”/ “very consistent”. Finally, this is how parents felt in these three areas:

• teacher communications:  87.4% “satisfied”/ “very satisfied”
• school communications: 79.6% combined “satisfied”/“very satisfied”
• district communications: 73.9% combined “satisfied”/“very satisfied”

Relationship Struggles & Victories With Engagement

As far as relationships are concerned, parents felt there was no personal connection through their district’s many communication channels. However, once with ClassTag Connect, the quality of communication improved to 66.7%. Also, 61.7% stated that it was a better platform for more personal communication. In addition, 54.4% enjoyed improved relationships with their child’s teachers.

Most notably, nearly half of all parents clearly stated that communication experiences with teachers, schools, and districts would impact which school (or homeschool) they would choose for their child. So evidently, positive parental relationships stemming from targeted communication efforts can impact your district’s enrollment numbers.

What Intentional Communication Communicates For Family Engagement

In general, when people are on the receiving end of genuine and intentional efforts to strengthen and improve communication, they feel more connected. Consequently, the nature of their relationship with the communicator positively shifts. This is indeed the case for those parents whose districts made the deliberate effort to use ClassTag Connect. The engagement numbers tell the story.

As mentioned, when left to sift through numerous platforms, the average rate of family engagement in school and classroom communications was 68%. However, this number improved by 17% and rose to 85% once ClassTag Connect became the single platform. Further, prior to using it, those who were engaged at an 80-99% rate was only 25%.  However afterwards, this climbed up to 67% for a 42% increase. Finally, when asked if there were any changes needed since the onset of ClassTag Connect, parents expressed their total satisfaction. “Nothing. I’m very pleased with Classtag Connect”, “As of right now, the communication is great” and “I think this works really well, actually”. 

In Summary

To summarize, parents are very clear about what they desire with communication and how they want it. Districts who cater accordingly by implementing ClassTag Connect experience mutually beneficial outcomes. When intentionally offering parents one platform, communication becomes enhanced. Not only that, but more robust relationships develop. As a result, family engagement increases and the ultimate end goal of seeing students through to success becomes the norm.