ClassTag Connect / Jun 02, 2023
How to Empower Parents in Schools and...
If you’re researching how to empower parents in schools, we would like to take a moment to…
9 min read
As a school leader, it is vital that your communications between all campus stakeholders is as seamless as possible. Therefore, choosing the right communication platform to keep your school connected- your teachers, your families and yourself- is of essence. As you may know, there are many options to choose from and the task of researching them all is incredibly time-consuming. At ClassTag Connect, we’ll help you keep things simple when it comes to understanding the difference between our all-in-one school leader communication app compared to the sea of others out there.
What is the Difference Between ClassTag Connect and Every Other School Leader Communication App?
Main Focus
When a school administrator chooses ClassTag Connect, they’ll immediately know that our all-in-one family engagement platform solves the problem of fragmented and siloed communications once and for all. From seamless communication across your entire campus powered by a multi-channel reach to tools that help increase event and parent-teacher conference participation, ClassTag Connect excels in all features principals find important.
With other school communication apps like Remind, Class Dojo, Talking Points, Seesaw, and ParentSquare, you definitely also get a communication tool that reaches across your campus. However, the main focus with both Remind and Talking Points is on texting capabilities to communicate, and they don’t offer a robust suite of other highly sought after features. Also, ParentSquare focuses on offering different features for schools, but at times, organization and in-app support is difficult.
Continuing, ClassDojo and Seesaw focus on being student-centered platforms. While this is great in intention, unfortunately, these apps don’t offer school leaders the vast number of features needed for effective, overall communication. To illustrate, ClassDojo’s focus is on making “happier classrooms”, placing attention on student behavior management. Meanwhile, Seesaw’s concentration is on students showing their learning through shared digital portfolios.
As an administrator, it’s just easier when you can get everything accomplished within one school communication app as opposed to getting bits and pieces within many platforms. You can rest assured that the communication chaos ends when you begin with ClassTag Connect.
School Leader Communication App Comparison
As the chart below comparing ClassTag Connect with all of the other school communication apps shows, ClassTag Connect offers campus leaders an extensive number of tools needed to truly engage with everyone across your campus. If you, your staff, or any parent ever needs help while using our platform, rest assured because ClassTag Connect offers live 24/7 tech support!
ClassTag Connect understands what school leaders strive to do daily and helps keep your campus connected through our single comprehensive communications platform!
For the rest of this guide, you’ll learn about the ClassTag Connect school leader communication app difference in these areas:
All-in-One School Leader Communication App Dream
Multiple Channels, Multiple Languages
ClassTag Connect is truly a dream when it comes to helping administrators and their teachers both efficiently communicate and effectively connect with every family across your campus. ClassTag Connect offers a seamless, multi-channel reach where families can receive campus messages through their chosen delivery method: SMS, email, voice message, social media, and even paper. Go with Remind, ClassDojo, Talking Points, or Seesaw and you won’t see the full variety of communication options that you will with ClassTag Connect.
Additionally, when it comes to sending messages to parents, you need to ensure that what is sent is understood by each recipient. With this, what about families whose home languages are different from the original message’s dialect?
ClassTag Connect is an extremely useful solution to language barriers as messages are automatically converted into any of the 100+ languages available, according to parent-set preferences. 
As for finding a similar feature within all of the other apps, only ParentSquare does so. However, Remind, ClassDojo, Talking Points, and Seesaw do not offer automatic message translation in over 100 languages and this can be a great disservice to your school and its families.
As your campus leader, you know all too well just how important inclusion is. Through multiple channels and multiple languages available with ClassTag Connect, you can create inclusiveness in addition to everything else our platform has available.
Your Campus Communication App Should Integrate Smart with Comprehensive
Smart, Actionable Alert Integration
It can be rather frustrating when you or your staff are unable to make contact with parents. End the frustration with ClassTag Connect’s information management system that allows families to keep their numbers, addresses, and emergency contacts up-to-date.
As well, when information still seems to be incorrect, ClassTag Connect will automatically flag and alert you of those parent accounts and then as a school, you can take action to ensure their accuracy.
ClassTag Connect’s effective information management system is indeed a smart feature for you and your staff.
Continuing, having current contact information is especially helpful in times of emergency situations and this is something else that ClassTag Connect does well.
You see, any emergency notification that needs to be quickly distributed will be instantly routed to all contacts listed to ensure that the message reaches its recipient, no matter what. Especially in emergency situations, ClassTag Connect’s instant delivery to all contacts feature proves to be time saving and in some cases- life saving.
On the contrary, Remind, ClassDojo, and SeeSaw do not have such an extensive integrated information management system. Users generally have to find workarounds to ultimately achieve all of the same things that are efficiently done within ClassTag Connect’s single platform.
Comprehensive Report Integration
With ClassTag Connect as your school communication app, you have instant access to comprehensive reports providing actionable insights into key issues including:
- Family reach and readership
- Two-way engagement
- Increasing parent-teacher conference and event participation
When you or your staff reach out to parents, it’s important to know that they are indeed getting your messages. Some parents are great at responding while others may not be. So, how can you fully know if your communication was received?
Fortunately, ClassDojo, Talking Points, SeeSaw, and ParentSquare all have some level of parent engagement tracking. However, not all are equivalent to what ClassTag Connect offers. Now, if you were to go with Remind, you won’t have any monitoring options freely available to your staff at all. So you’d have to continue sending messages in hopes that parents are indeed receiving them and potentially just not reciprocating with a response.
Truly, the “Did they get our message?” problem is solved when you choose ClassTag Connect. You get full engagement tracking reports to help you and your staff understand how to better connect with inactive parents.
Continuing, typically with ClassTag Connect, your teachers send messages through parents’ own hand-selected choice of text, email, app, or website notifications. But, if an engagement report indicates communications are not reaching their destination, then our platform auto-suggests that perhaps technology access could be an issue.
With this, for parents with limited, to no, technology resources, ClassTag Connect takes care of the details. We’ll prompt your teachers with smart, actionable alerts and recommendations such as printing out messages to send home in kids’ backpacks or through the mail. Making sure that you and your staff are able to connect with each and every parent, by any means necessary, is important to ClassTag Connect.
Comprehensive System Integrations
On top of everything offered so far, ClassTag Connect also has a built-in scheduling system. It’s cleverly designed to help your staff with things such as setting up parent-teacher conferences or requesting class volunteers.
When your teachers need to schedule someone or something, our unique ClassTag Connect app feature allows teachers to set up scheduling options that work best for them. Next, they make those choices available for parents to select from. Then, on the parent’s end of the app, they choose what is best for them. ClassTag Connect’s in-app scheduling is a great way to increase parent-teacher conference and event participation on your campus.
As for the other platforms, ParentSquare also has a scheduling feature but Remind, Class Dojo, Talking Points, Seesaw do not. With those, your staff would need to juggle between things like additional calendar setting apps, placing emails or texts, and sending paper sign ups home. Not to mention, they’d also need to keep track of all of those different methods of contact attempts. Really, scheduling is just made simpler with ClassTag Connect!
Google Integrations in One School Leader Communication App
Something incredibly useful for your campus is our ClassTag Connect + Google integration. When you or your teachers set a meeting or an event within our app, that appointment is auto-synced into parents’ Google Calendar. On top of this, if your meeting is virtual, then any Google Meet conference link you’ve set will also be automatically included in Calendar.
Now, some of the other comparison apps offer Google integrations within their platforms. However, with ClassTag Connect’s own integration advancements, parents don’t need to leave our app while using any of the Google features. It’s all included!
As if that’s not enough, one of the best ClassTag Connect + Google features is that parents will receive automated reminders about their appointments with you or your staff through our platform’s notifications. At ClassTag Connect, we strive to ensure that connection and accountability happen on your behalf.
Your Staff Deserves the Best School Communication App
Keep Student Files Organized
We know that part of your job as your campus leader is to ensure that all t’s and i’s are properly tended to. Considering this, ClassTag Connect has an outstanding virtual portfolio feature called “Student Backpacks”. While Talking Points and Seesaw also offer student file storage, comparatively, our Student Backpack feature is simply more organized and comprehensive.
Firstly, ClassTag Connect’s Student Backpacks allow your teachers to quickly upload and share students’ work with parents. As well, they also serve as a secure place to store vital documents like copies of IEPs and 504 plans. Finally, parents also have the ability to upload documents into their child’s Backpack for you and your teachers to access. Our Student Backpacks offer a lot of connection and collaboration in just one feature alone!
Unfortunately, apps like Remind, ClassDojo, and ParentSquare do not have any form of virtual portfolios. So with these platforms, you and your teachers will need to stick with paper portfolios stored in filing cabinets. For teachers with larger class sizes and multiple class periods, this can take up a lot of physical space. 
Help Your Teachers Save Money Through Your School Communication Platform
As a campus leader, you know that too often, your teachers spend copious amounts of their own money on resources their learners need. With that, one rather unique ClassTag Connect feature is our integrated system that allows teachers to get help in acquiring much-needed classroom supplies. We call it the “Classroom Fund”.
Through our Classroom Fund feature, your teachers can make and share a list of supplies that are available to purchase through ClassTag Connect’s supplies store to get much-needed resources.
As parents review a teacher’s list, they’re able to contribute any amount they’d like to that will go towards the teacher’s supply store purchases. This is a great way to help your staff and students get the resources they need to enhance lessons and learning!
As for the others- Remind, Class Dojo, Talking Points, Seesaw, and ParentSquare- they do not have the same style of money-saving features integrated within their platforms like our Classroom Fund catering to teachers’ supply needs.
Why Choose ClassTag Connect as Your Campus Communication Platform?
Why choose ClassTag Connect? The answer is simple: It’s time to stop the communications chaos! Beyond that, as we’ve shown, our platform’s wealth of features is what every school leader needs to ensure harmonious communication and engagement across their campus. In conclusion, ClassTag Connect is the best school leader communication app that will suit all of your school’s needs that reach above and beyond communication alone. Leaders- keep your school connected with ClassTag Connect!
To start using ClassTag Connect to keep your school connected, book your demo today!
