Answers to 100 common questions about School Signals, school communication, family engagement, integrations, alerts, forms, and more.
School Signals is a unified school communication and family engagement platform for K12 schools and districts. It brings school and district news, classroom communication, private messaging, forms, events, volunteering, parent-teacher conferences, clubs and programs, documents, and other communication into one connected platform.
School Signals is designed for public schools and districts, private and independent schools, charter schools, and other school communities that want to bring communication and family participation into one system.
Different users can have different roles and permissions, including District Admins, School Admins, teachers, parents, community users, and students age 13 and older.
Unified school communication means connecting the different levels and purposes of school communication involving all stakeholders rather than asking families and staff to use separate systems for various purposes.
In School Signals, families find district announcements, school news, classroom updates, clubs, athletics, parent groups, private messaging, forms, events, volunteering, and other communication all within the same school communication platform.
A traditional school communication approach is to blast one-way messages to a community or use teacher-parent messaging apps. This leaves a lot of communication out such as parents being able to ask questions, visibility to all communication provided, communication around club and groups, and consolidated sign-up methods. School Signals connects communication with participation and family engagement.
A family may receive an update and then RSVP to the event, complete a form, volunteer, schedule a parent-teacher conference, open a related document, or ask a question without having to find another system.
When parents have a single, reliable hub for everything from daily updates to PTA volunteering and after-school schedules, participation goes up.
Yes. Schools use School Signals for everyday news, classroom communication, calendars, private messaging, and notifications while also managing events, RSVPs, forms, volunteering, conferences, clubs, programs, and parent organizations.
School Signals is a closed school communication network with role-based access and school-managed accounts. User permissions limit what different account types can access and manage, and families can control the visibility of their personal information.
School Signals supports FERPA-compliant school communication practices. Administrators retain oversight of school communication, and School Signals also supports two-factor authentication.
No. School Signals supports private and independent schools, public schools, charter schools, and school districts.
The same platform can serve an individual school or a multi-school organization with district-level administration and communication.
Yes. School Signals is designed for communication at multiple levels: district, school, grade, classroom, club, program, group, PTA/PTO, staff, and individual messaging. The community can interact with the communication contextually but also locate all posts from a time-line based School Feed. You can configure admin rights for specifc groups and clubs, so that the ecosystem is supported by various active members of the community in their admin roles. Additionally, language translataions esnure everyone understands the communication.
Depending on the systems a school currently uses, School Signals can reduce the need for separate tools for school communication, parent-teacher messaging, events, RSVPs, volunteering, parent-teacher conferences, online forms, clubs, athletics, parent groups, documents, and other family engagement activities.
School Signals doesn't require every family to use a mobile app.
Parents and staff can use School Signals from a computer, mobile browser, or the School Signals app. Communication can also reach families outside the platform through email, SMS text, and automated voice messages depending on the communication type.
Yes. School Signals is designed for whole-school and multi-school communication.
District administrators can manage communication across multiple schools while each school maintains its own community, administrators, classrooms, programs, and communication.
Yes. District Admins can manage multiple schools through their district account.
A district can also limit a District Admin's access to a defined group of schools rather than automatically giving every District Admin access to every school.
Yes. District Admins can publish district communication to all schools or select the individual schools that need to receive it.
Families see the communication within their own School Signals environment rather than having to follow a separate district system.
Yes. A District Admin can select which schools receive a District Post rather than automatically sending every district communication to every school.
Yes. District communication and school-level communication operate as separate levels within School Signals.
School leaders can continue managing their own school communication while district leaders publish information that applies across multiple schools.
Yes. Communication can be connected to the right audience.
School Signals supports district communication, schoolwide posts, grade levels, classrooms, clubs and programs, groups, staff communication, and individual messaging.
Yes. A district can give an administrator access to all schools or restrict that administrator to a selected group of schools.
This allows districts to align School Signals access with regional, departmental, or other administrative responsibilities.
Yes. School Signals supports both individual schools and multi-school organizations serving thousands of students and family members.
Its district structure lets larger organizations manage multiple school communities without treating every user as one undifferentiated audience.
Yes. District administrators can create online form templates and share them with schools across the district.
Each school can then publish the form within its own school community, providing district consistency while maintaining school-level distribution and submission management.
Yes. A district can begin with a pilot at one school and expand School Signals after the district team has experience with the platform and launch.
No. Families can use School Signals from a web browser on a computer, tablet, or mobile device.
The app provides convenient mobile access and push notifications, but families do not have to depend on the app to stay informed.
Yes. Parents can use School Signals on desktop and mobile web as well as through the iOS and Android apps.
They can choose the device that works best for what they are doing.
School Signals brings relevant communication and family activities into one environment.
Instead of receiving an announcement in one system and then searching another system for the form, event, volunteer opportunity, conference signup, or document, families can move directly from the communication to the related action.
Communication is connected to audiences and family relationships.
Parents receive schoolwide information along with communication connected to their children's classrooms, clubs, programs, and other applicable groups.
Yes. School Feed presents all posts in one unified feed so families can have quick updates. Users can go to specific groups, classrooms, and clubs for more details, such as accessing documents, forms, and galleries. This content is also referenced in main pages. The bottom line: we want content to be easy to find.
Yes. For example, a school can publish a post about an upcoming field trip and connect it to the required permission form. A parent can read the update, open the form, complete it, and return to the school communication without having to find a separate form system.
A school can also publish an event with an RSVP, a volunteer opportunity with available time slots, or a parent-teacher conference announcement with a link to available meeting times.
Yes. Parents can manage notification preferences for routine communication.
For Feed updates, families can choose immediate, daily, or weekly email delivery. App push and other notification types follow the rules for their respective communication channels.
Yes. School Signals reach families through email, SMS text, automated voice, and app push depending on the communication type.
Important communication therefore does not depend solely on whether a parent has recently opened the app.
Yes, when the school allows comments.
Schools can allow family discussion, close comments when discussion is unnecessary, or require moderation before comments become visible to the wider community.
Yes. School Signals can automatically translate school communication and private messages according to the user's selected language.
Parents can also reply in their preferred language, while staff receive the translated message.
Yes. Teachers and administrators can use School Signals from desktop, mobile web, and the app.
The app includes administrative and communication functions, not just a family viewing app.
Yes. Teachers can use Classrooms to publish news, updates, reminders, photos, and other classroom communication.
Classrooms can also include calendars, events, forms, volunteering, documents, Pages, and other resources.
Yes. Teachers can communicate privately with parents through School Signals without exchanging personal phone numbers.
School administrators retain access to school messaging for oversight.
Yes. School Signals can automatically translate classroom posts and private messages between teachers and families.
Yes. Classroom communication is connected to the applicable Classroom audience.
Parents associated with students in that classroom are automatically connected to the Classroom through the school’s student and family data.
Yes. Teachers can use School Signals features within their Classroom, including events, online forms, volunteering, calendars, documents, galleries, and Pages.
Yes. Teacher accounts include the rights needed for common classroom and teacher responsibilities without providing the broader access of a School Admin account.
You can provide additional feature-specific rights when appropriate.
Yes. School Admins can control whether teachers, as a group, have permission to publish posts to the schoolwide School Feed.
Teachers can still communicate within the areas they manage, such as their own Classrooms or Groups and Clubs where they have been given administrative rights. Schoolwide communication remains under the school’s broader posting settings.
Yes. Schools can configure posting permissions, comment moderation, private messaging rules, student access, parent participation, notification practices, and feature-specific administrative rights to reflect their real-life needs.
Schools decide how open or controlled different areas of communication should be without custom software development.
Yes. Teachers and staff can manage Clubs & Programs and Groups in addition to their classroom responsibilities.
Coaches and instructors can also receive Program Admin rights for the programs they manage.
School Signals uses audiences and family relationships to determine which communication each family receives.
Families get school-wide updates together with the grade, classroom, club, program, and group communication that applies to their children, without having to sort through activities that do not involve them.
Yes. Relevant posts can appear together in the School Feed while remaining connected to the communication space where they originated.
Schools can target communication to the appropriate audience instead of sending every update to everyone.
Priority Posts can elevate important communication, while Pages and Documents give permanent information a more appropriate home than a temporary Feed post.
Yes. Posts can be directed schoolwide or to more specific audiences such as grade levels, classrooms, groups, clubs, programs, and staff.
District Posts can likewise be sent to all or selected schools.
Yes. School Signals supports comments and reactions when the school permits them.
Schools decide how much parent participation they want in the Feed.
Yes. Schools can allow comments, close comments, or require approval before comments become visible to other users.
Moderation allows useful questions and responses to become part of the community discussion while giving administrators oversight.
Yes. Schools can control parent posting rights, expand rights for Parent Admins, and give program administrators appropriate communication rights for their assigned programs.
Yes. School Signals features can be announced through the Feed so families can move directly from the communication to the related activity.
The School Feed is designed for current updates and conversation.
Pages provide an organized home for information families may need to reference throughout the year, while Documents provide access to files and downloadable resources.
Schools can use the Feed for timely communication and Pages or Documents for information intended to remain easy to find over time.
This keeps permanent information from depending on an old post remaining visible in a chronological feed.
Routine School Signals communication can generate email and app push notifications.
Schools can use SMS text and automated voice for Priority Posts, while Critical Alerts use multiple communication channels for urgent situations.
A regular post follows routine notification settings.
A Priority Post allows an administrator to elevate important communication and add SMS text, automated voice, or both.
A Critical Alert is for urgent situations and overrides standard parent notification preferences to maximize reach.
Yes. School Signals supports email, SMS text, app push, and automated voice communication.
Yes. Parents manage notification preferences. Parents can control notification volume by setting notifications to daily rather than instant.
Parents don’t need to use the app to stay connected. Parents receive email, text, and voice message notifications about posted updates and news. Inactive users can receive notifications, too.
Yes. Critical Alerts are intended for urgent situations in which the school needs to reach as much of the community as possible.
They override standard parent notification preferences.
Yes. Critical Alerts can use the contact information and language information the school has on file even when the parent has not activated their School Signals account.
Yes. Critical Alerts are delivered through SMS text, email, app push, and automated voice to maximize emergency reach.
Yes. School Signals can translate the Critical Alert according to the family’s language setting and generate the corresponding automated voice message using Text-to-Speech.
Yes. District leaders can issue Critical Alerts through district communication, while authorized school leaders can issue Critical Alerts for their individual school.
Yes. School Signals includes private messaging for authorized users.
It works on desktop and mobile and allows school-related communication without requiring teachers and parents to share personal phone numbers.
Yes, when the school's messaging settings permit it.
Schools can determine whether parent messaging includes staff-only communication, parent-to-parent communication, or other permitted configurations.
Yes. Private messaging is a user right that administrators can control or remove.
Schools can also configure how parent and student chat works.
Yes. School Admins can access school chat threads, including threads that have not been reported.
Users are informed that administrators maintain this oversight.
Yes. Users can report inappropriate chat activity.
School Admins are notified and can review the conversation and take appropriate action.
Yes. Schools can create School Signals accounts for students age 13 and older.
Schools determine whether student messaging is enabled, can require a staff member to participate in student chats, can turn messaging off, and can restrict individual student access when necessary.
Yes. Private messages can be automatically translated so users can communicate using their preferred languages.
Yes. Translation works in both directions.
A parent can write in one supported language, and the teacher receives the translated message in their preferred language.
Yes. School Signals provides automated translation for posts and private messages and supports multilingual Text-to-Speech voice communication.
Schools can still use human interpretation when a situation calls for specialized or highly sensitive communication.
Yes. School Admins can access school chats and take action when administrative review is necessary.
Admins don't have to participate in every conversation to maintain oversight.
Yes. Schools can create online forms and publish them to the audiences that need them, including specific grade-levels, classrooms, groups, or other communities.
You can also announce forms through the School Feed.
Yes. Forms can be targeted to appropriate audiences and can be set as required.
Forms can also connect to other School Signals activities, such as events, conferences, and volunteering.
Yes. Submission reporting allows administrators to identify completed and outstanding required forms by parent and student.
Yes. Mandatory forms with a due date can generate reminders for families who have not yet submitted them.
Yes. School Signals Events collect RSVPs and attendee information. You can cap the number of allowed attendees and set an RSVP deadline.
Schools can also set attendance limits and RSVP deadlines.
Yes. School Signals Volunteering supports time-based shifts, role-based opportunities, item donations, available slot limits, and recurring opportunities.
This allows schools to manage everything from a classroom activity to a multi-day school event.
Yes. School Signals sends reminders connected to upcoming volunteer commitments so families are less likely to miss the time or task they selected.
Yes. Teachers can create conference availability, and parents can select available meeting times.
The Parent-Teacher Conference Scheduler can also prevent scheduling conflicts, send reminders, and connect pre-conference forms to the meeting process.
Yes. These activities can be announced through the School Feed, so families receive the communication and have a direct path to the related action.
Yes. School Signals includes online forms, event RSVPs, volunteering, and parent-teacher conference scheduling.
Schools can keep these activities connected to their school communication rather than requiring families to manage separate accounts across several services.
Yes. Clubs & Programs provides dedicated communication spaces for athletics, extracurricular clubs, enrichment programs, tutoring, and other activities outside the classroom.
Yes. School Signals provides mobile administrative access.
Coaches and instructors with the appropriate Program Admin rights can manage communication and program information from the mobile experience and from a computer.
Yes. Clubs & Programs can include their own communication, calendars, events, forms, documents, volunteering, registration information, and participant community.
Yes. Schools can provide School Signals accounts to students age 13 and older and include them in authorized athletics, club, classroom, and school communication.
The school controls student participation.
Yes. School Admins can access student chat communication and configure student messaging rules.
Schools can also require staff participation in student chat threads, moderate student posts and comments, and restrict a student's communication privileges when necessary.
Yes. A parent can receive Parent Admin or other feature-specific rights without becoming a School Admin.
These rights can include managing posts, groups, volunteer opportunities, events, classrooms, or programs depending on the responsibilities assigned to the parent.
Yes. PTA/PTO Groups can have their own communication, events, online forms, volunteering, documents, directories, and other group activities.
Yes. School Signals Groups provide dedicated spaces for PTA/PTO organizations, committees, staff groups, parent groups, and similar communities.
Clubs & Programs provide a related structure for athletics, extracurricular activities, and after-school programs.
Yes. School Signals uses role-based and feature-specific permissions.
A parent leader can receive only the additional management rights needed for assigned activities, while an outside instructor or coach can receive Program Admin rights for the specific program they manage without becoming a School Admin.
Yes. Each community can maintain its own communication context while remaining connected to the same platform used for schoolwide communication, classrooms, events, forms, calendars, and family participation.
School Signals supports data integrations and workflows with PowerSchool, FACTS, and Blackbaud.
SIS data allows School Signals to establish accurate relationships among students, parents, teachers, classrooms, grades, and schools.
School Signals connects to PowerSchool through its API.
School Signals prepares the required integration setup and works with the school through the connection process. School Signals pulls updated data through the API when an update is requested rather than using a continuous automatic sync.
Your school provides its PowerSchool server address and installs the School Signals plugin in PowerSchool. School Signals prepares the plugin specifically for your account, tests the API connection, and handles the data sync from our side.
No. School Signals pulls the information needed to establish and update its communication network but does not write changes back into the SIS.
The school's SIS remains the system of record.
Yes. School Signals uses SIS information to connect families with the appropriate students, schools, grades, classrooms, and other applicable school relationships.
This reduces manual setup for both administrators and families.
School Signals works with the school during onboarding to establish user accounts, connect or import school data, configure the platform, train staff, and prepare for family rollout.
Schools can introduce School Signals according to their own communication plan rather than attempting to move every school process at once.
Schools should generally allow a few weeks to prepare for launch.
This provides time to connect or import accounts, configure the platform, add initial content, train staff, and communicate the change to families.
School Signals provides training and direct support to schools during onboarding and answers questions as teams begin using the platform.
Schools also have access to the School Signals Knowledge Base, Help Center, and ongoing product documentation for administrators and users.
School Signals uses student-based pricing so schools can pay at a level appropriate to their enrollment rather than purchasing the same large enterprise package regardless of size.
Published pricing begins at 50 students. Schools paying annually receive a discount compared with monthly billing.
Yes. Schools can begin with a Product Discovery Demo.
After the demo, School Signals can provide a trial school so the team can explore the platform before subscribing. Districts can also begin with a single-school pilot before considering a broader rollout.
