ParentSquare Staff Guide & Troubleshooting

Essential instructions, feature documentation, and step-by-step troubleshooting for district staff.

Core Features & Instructions

Make a Post

To make a post in ParentSquare, you must have a role or permission that allows you to make posts. Administrators, teachers, specialists, and group owners can make posts.

For those who can post:

If you have an announcement you want made to your entire building and your role does not permit you, please give your message to your building administrator to post. If you have an announcement you would like made school- or district-wide, please send it to your building administrator.

Look Up Someone

All staff can search and view students, staff, and parents at their building or any staff member in the district through the Directory setting:

  1. Make sure you are on the home page where you want to be (for someone in your building – your school’s name should be in bold in the top left corner; if you are looking up a district staff member, Chehalis School District should be in bold in the top left corner).
  2. In the left-hand column, navigate under “Explore” and choose “Directory” – this will take you to a searchable directory. In a building directory, you can also click on a list of classes to view directories for individual classes.

Most staff members will not be able to view directory listings of students or parents in other buildings. If you need to contact a family from another building, please contact the office or admin of that building for assistance.

Message Parents Not in My Classroom or Building

Typically, classroom teachers may contact the parents and students in their own classroom, and Administrators may contact students, parents, and staff building-wide in ParentSquare. Occasionally, there is a reason someone might need more access to students or parents from a wider area. For example:

  • A staff member such as a specialist who works with students from more than one classroom in their building
  • A staff member who works with students and families in more than one building
  • A staff member who is a coach or club advisor for a different building than their own

In these kinds of cases, we can add permissions to your ParentSquare account that allow you to be in contact with a wider group of students and parents. Please contact the tech department to request this change.

Change My Contact Information

Please contact your building administrative assistant or tech support if:

  • Your staff member account’s contact information is incorrect in ParentSquare.
  • Your parent account’s contact information is incorrect in ParentSquare.
  • A parent tells you their contact information is incorrect in ParentSquare.

Ask for Items or Volunteers

One of the many add-on features for ParentSquare posts is the ability to ask for items or volunteers. You can list what your needs are, and parents can either sign up to bring items or volunteer their time. Having an event requires both volunteers and items? You can add both requests to a single ParentSquare post.

Article about how to add “ask for item” or “ask for volunteers” to a post

Make a Form

NOTE: This function is enabled on our ParentSquare platform; however, make sure to get approval from your building administrator before using it.

Forms such as field trip permission forms, use agreements, or receipt of student handbooks can be sent and managed through ParentSquare. You can create a one-time form or a form template that can be used by an entire building. Once filled out, these forms are stored on the ParentSquare platform for easy access.

Learn the Basics. I’m New

  • ParentSquare Academy free online learning opportunities
  • Contact Jim or Ken to schedule a one-on-one or small group training session at any time during the year.
  • While logged in to the web-based ParentSquare, click on the question mark logo in the upper right-hand corner of the page to be taken to a searchable database of ParentSquare training articles and videos. ParentSquare even offers free training opportunities throughout the year.

Schedule Conferences

NOTE: Since every building handles conference scheduling differently, make sure your administrator is made aware before you use this function of ParentSquare.

You can create appointment sign-ups in ParentSquare that allow you to list which appointment times you will offer, and parents sign up for the spot that works best for them.

Schedule Conferences for Only Some of My Parents

Sometimes you need to hold a conference with just a portion of your students or parents. Use Appointment Sign Ups and then send a link to just those that you need to meet with.

Process:

  1. Create an appointment sign-up as normal.
  2. Instead of posting, choose “Schedule” and schedule for a time well past the appointment sign-up dates.
  3. Scheduling the post allows you to get a share link that you can then send to an individual or a group of parents (make sure you choose Direct Message for a group rather than Group Conversation) in Messaging. The sign-ups will then only be available to those you send the link to.
  4. After the conference dates have passed, find your scheduled post and delete it.

Know Who Receives and Can Comment on My Post

Who Gets Your Post?

You get to choose your audience for posts, and most staff members can’t even make a post to the entire school district.

After you choose “New Post”, the first line in your new post is “To”. If you click on that box, it will give you a list of all of the groups you can make a post to. Posts can be building-wide (with role permission) or to a specific group of your choosing, such as a classroom, sports team, or extracurricular activity group. After you choose your “To”, the next line gives you a drop-down menu next to the words “Who Should See This?”

More information on how to make a post

If you have an announcement that you want made to your entire building or district-wide and your role does not permit you, please give your message to your building administrator to post.

Delivery Report

On your Home ParentSquare page, you will see a feed of posts for your school, class, or group. In the box of your post, you will see two gray bars at the bottom: # Notified; and # Appreciated. If you click on the red number next to Notified, it will take you to a page with message delivery statistics. At the bottom of the page, there will be a searchable list of everyone who received your post, how they received your post, and whether it was delivered and whether it was opened.

Post Comments

You must choose for someone to be able to comment on your post. Even if commenting is turned on, all comments are automatically private so only the post administrator and the comment author can see the comment and any replies.

To allow commenting on a post, choose the settings wheel in the top right-hand corner of your post and under “Comments” choose “Enable Comments.” If commenting is enabled for a post, the choice under “Comments” will be “Disable Comments.”

Message Someone

The two options for messaging someone through ParentSquare are “Direct” and “Group.”

  • With a “Direct” message, you can send a message to up to 150 people, and any replies to your message are private between you and the person commenting (like using the “reply” button on an email).
  • With a “Group” message, you can send a message to up to 50 people, and all replies are visible to all (like using the “reply all” button on an email).

CLICK HERE for instructions on sending a direct message using parentsquare.com.

CLICK HERE for instructions on sending a direct message using the ParentSquare App.

Know If Someone Has Read My Message or Not

With read receipts, staff can now see if their direct message has been read by the recipient. Staff will see a “Read” or “Sent” status for any messages that they author. (This update only applies to direct messages, not group conversations.) Parents, students, and guests will not see read receipts for messages they send. Note: available on the web browser now, with the app release coming soon.

More information about the Read Receipts feature

Make a Newsletter

ParentSquare offers a few different ways to make newsletters. There are pre-made templates that you can simply personalize, or you can make a template of your own. By default, only administrators have the ability to make templates, but if this is something you are interested in, let Jim or Ken know, and they can add that role to your account.

Change My Class Name

Sometimes, the name of your class in ParentSquare might not be descriptive enough for you to easily keep track of classes (for instance, if you teach 3 periods of 9th Grade ELA). Even if you don’t have multiple classes, you may want to change the display name of your classroom to fit with a classroom theme or your own preference.

Article about how to rename your class in ParentSquare

Translation for MLL Families

You don’t have to! When they register their account with ParentSquare, families have the ability to choose from 120 different languages that they can send and receive messages in. To choose their preferred language, parents need to choose “Manage Account” in the drop-down menu under their name in the upper right-hand corner of ParentSquare.com. In the column on the left-hand side, choose “Language Settings” and then use the drop-down menu to choose their preferred language. (Note: parents will need to register their account to access their account settings)

ParentSquare also offers two-way translation. If you are direct messaging with a parent who has chosen a preferred language other than English in their ParentSquare account settings, you can send a message in English, and they will receive the message translated into their preferred language. They can send you a message in their preferred language, and you will receive it in English.

More information about using translation in ParentSquare

Learn Some New ParentSquare Skills

If you are new to the ParentSquare platform, want a refresher on a skill you haven’t used in a while, or want to learn how to do something new in ParentSquare, we’re here to help:

  • Contact Jim or Ken to schedule a one-on-one or small group training session at any time during the year.
  • While logged in to the web-based ParentSquare, click on the question mark logo in the upper right-hand corner of the page to be taken to a searchable database of ParentSquare training articles and videos. ParentSquare even offers free training opportunities throughout the year.

Troubleshooting

When you make a conference sign-ups post (read how at THIS POST), at the bottom of the first page you will have 3 options you can choose:

  • Hide names of users who sign up
  • Limit to 1 appointment per user across all time slots
  • Require student information

Most often, if a teacher has a parent who cannot sign up for a conference, it is because the teacher chose “Limit to 1 appointment per user across all time slots” when creating the appointment sign-up. This can be confusing, but “User” actually means student here, which means only one adult will be allowed to sign up for a conference for each student.

To avoid problems for students with more than 1 household: Do not choose “Limit to 1 appointment per user across all time slots”.

This is one of the few options that cannot be edited after the post is made. If you have made a sign-ups post with this option chosen, the recommendation is to:

  1. Choose “Edit” under the settings wheel on your post.
  2. Delete the time slot that the parent who cannot sign up wants so that no one else can choose it.
  3. Keep a list for yourself of those you have added like this.

The first step when you don’t see options or functions you normally see is to look at your Location and your Account.

Location – Each staff member’s permissions are unique to their position. Some may have permissions only in their building; others may have permissions in the district or in multiple buildings. If you are not seeing what you normally see, make sure you are not on a home page where you do not have those permissions.

  • On Web: Look in the upper left-hand corner at what entity is in Bold.
  • On App: Your location shows at the top of your screen.

Account – If you are both a parent and a staff member – you have 2 different accounts, with two different permissions, in ParentSquare. For instance, parents may not post or view parent directories, while teachers can. If you are not seeing what you normally see, make sure you are in your staff account and not your parent account:

  • On Web: Look in the upper right-hand corner to view which account you are in. Use the pull-down menu to change.
  • On App: Click on the triple bar in the upper left-hand corner and choose “Account”.

Some families receive “Instant” messages, which means they receive each message when it is posted, and some receive “Digest” messages, meaning they receive all posts for one day in the evening (around 6-6:30 p.m.).

In the box directly above the Post button, choose “Send Instantly (overrides digest settings)” if:

  • You are making the post after 5 p.m., and you are sharing information that recipients need today and tomorrow night would be too late (“great job on our game tonight, see you at 9 a.m. tomorrow for practice” or “don’t forget tomorrow’s concert”).
  • You are making a post with information that is urgent (“today’s practice is canceled” or “the bus to the game is leaving 30 min. earlier today”).

Make Sure You’re Using Best Practices for Communication

Message fatigue is a real thing. The Number 1 comment from parents who are unhappy with ParentSquare is that they are receiving too many messages. Sometimes unavoidable circumstances force us to send out multiple messages in a day, but during normal operations, a good rule of thumb for messaging to parents is 1-2 times per week.

If your parents are telling you they are receiving too many messages, think: is there some way you could make your messaging to them feel less overwhelming? Viewing the delivery status for some of your posts (a tutorial on how to do that is available at THIS LINK) can be helpful to show you what your parents are and are not reading. Some things to think about:

  • Could those daily posts be consolidated into a weekly recap?
  • Could that post you put together during your lunch hour be scheduled for 5 p.m. instead of sent right away so all parents, including instant recipients, receive it after work?
  • What days of the week are your parents more likely to open and read a post? The Chehalis School District avoids Friday posts when possible because our parents have told us in surveys they do not have the time or energy to read them.

Suggest Digest Setting

ParentSquare allows parents to customize their message delivery options to help avoid message fatigue. If a parent complains of receiving too many messages during the day, please remind them they have the option to choose to receive “digest” ParentSquare messages, which is one message at the end of the day (around 6-6:30 p.m.) containing all messages for your family from that day. This option can be chosen by clicking on “Manage my Account” under your account, and then “Notification Settings”.

Your Delivery Report is your best first step to help a parent who is not receiving ParentSquare messages. At the bottom of your most recent post, look for an icon that looks like an eye with a number and the word “notified.” Click on the number to be taken to the delivery report for that post. You can search for that parent in the delivery report to gain insight into what is happening.

Some common issues include:

  • Digest Settings: A parent receives “Digest” messages – which is one message at the end of the day containing any message that day for your family, and did not know to scroll to the bottom for other messages. This is a good opportunity to ask them, “Would you prefer to receive ParentSquare messages differently?”
  • Outdated Information: A family’s contact information has changed and was not updated in Skyward Family Access – you might see the words “failed”, “bounced” or “Invalid” in the delivery stats next to their name.
  • Spam Filters: ParentSquare messages are not getting through because they were marked as Spam – either by the parent or by their carrier’s firewall. You would see the word “Marked as Spam”, “Blocked” or “Opted Out” in the delivery stats next to their name. Have them check their spam folder and mark the message as not being spam, or check their list of blocked senders and unblock. This is a change that can ONLY be made on their end.
  • Unopened: A ParentSquare message was received but not opened.
  • System Failure: Something went wrong with the post (parent contact info is correct but message failed) – please contact your building administrative assistant if this happens.

If you are both a parent and a staff member in the district, your staff and parent accounts cannot be merged into one account. While you cannot view these two accounts simultaneously, you can be logged into both and toggle between views.

Article explaining how to navigate account toggling

ParentSquare receives student and family information directly from PowerSchool. If you can’t see a student or parent/guardian in ParentSquare, it could be because:

  • New Registration: The student/family is very new to the district and may not yet be in PowerSchool as “active” – assume new students will take at least 48 hours to show up in ParentSquare.
  • PowerSchool Authorization: A “parent” is not listed in PowerSchool as a parent/guardian – if it is a case of a new marriage or new guardianship, alert Kris Reed (reedk@jtowndrakes.org) to have them added to PowerSchool. Any PowerSchool changes regarding custody issues need to be supported with legal documentation. If it is someone who the family approves to be a “parent” in ParentSquare but no PowerSchool change is warranted, please email their First Name, Last Name, Email Address, and Phone number to Kris Reed, who will manually add them (family must approve).
  • System Escalation: Something has gone wrong – if none of these reasons exist, please contact Kris Reed and they will investigate.

Contact Jim or Ken for help troubleshooting ParentSquare issues.

In the web-based ParentSquare, click on the circle with the question mark in the top right-hand corner near your name. This will take you to a searchable list of ParentSquare topics. Many ParentSquare training articles also include helpful video tutorials.