This past winter, on Monday February 12 — a week after the end of the teacher’s strike, when most NPS parents were thrilled to no longer open emails sent by “Newton Public Schools” to know whether or not their children would have class the next day — NPS sent a blast message to parents inviting them to join ParentSquare. The email noted that NPS was “beginning the transition to all communications coming through ParentSquare. This transition will be gradual over the remaining school year.”
ParentSquare, founded in 2011 by a computer engineer in Southern California who became a “stay-at-home-mom” and realized how much more connected she was to her children’s school, states that its app is used in “over 38,000 schools” in the United States. Its deployment in NPS was previewed in October 2023 by former Communications Director Julie McDonough, and parents have noticed for the past several that months that the usual automated text messages from the district contained a link to “view in ParentSquare.”
This Fig City News reporter recently downloaded the ParentSquare app. After verifying my and my children’s identities, I was brought to a customized newsfeed-style homepage with our home elementary school’s name appearing in the banner. The app appeared to contain a wide range of functionality, including schedule, calendar, and class information for each child. Their entire school faculty directory was available, along with the ability to send and receive messages to staff and educators via the app. There was also a Groups section (only one Group — one for new NPS parents — was visible), as well as a presently blank “Polls” section.
In her first year in Newton, Superintendent Anna Nolin has focused on standardizing and making consistent the family experience across the NPS system, and ParentSquare, with its ability to instantly transmit both academic and extra curricular information to all parents, appears to be an integral part of that effort.