County Administrator & Principal FAQs
View Parent, Student & Admin Support FAQsQuestion: So, how does eSchoolNewsletter work?
Answer: First, parents voluntarily signup for your school's email distribution. This is accomplished by getting the word out via flyers, website links and word-of-mouth. Next, principals go to their personal admin screen and select a target group... might be the whole school or maybe just a single grade. And finally, principals enter the message they want to send... this might be a cut/paste version of their current newsletter or maybe just a single announcement. Principals have total control.
Question: Who updates the parent emails?
Answer: The parents do. This is done online, as needed. Also, at the end of each school year, the parents move their children to the next grade and possibly the next school. At the beginning of each new year, the database will be fresh and ready to use.
Question: What can I send to the parents?
Answer: Right now, the system handles both text messages and HTML emails. You can send one line messages or take your entire newsletter and cut/paste it into the HTML box.
Question: My email address has changed, how can I update my profile?>
Answer: To change any of your profile information, please click Edit Your Profile.
Question: I am no longer in the school system and want to delete my profile..... how do I do this ?
Answer: To delete your profile information, please click Parent - Remove Me, PTA/PTSA - Remove Me or Administration - Remove Me.
Question: How many emails can I send each week?
Answer: The number is unlimited, however, parents usually don't expect more than 1-2 per week.
Question: We currently have a list serve.... will the eSchoolNewsletter replace that?
Answer: Yes it could. You can, however, keep your list serve and run the eSchoolNewsletter too.
Question: Can other people, besides the principal, send emails through this system?
Answer: Yes, PTA, Asst Principals, Team Leaders and Instructional Leaders can use the system (as a sender), however, all emails will flow through the principal for approval prior to delivery.
To become a sender, you must request approval by your principal during the Signup process. If you have already signed up, Remove your current account and signup again as either PTA, Teacher, Vice Principal or Administrative Support.
Question: Can I attach other files or forms?
Answer: No, not at this time
Question: How does eSchoolNewsletter differ from Yahoo Groups or other list serves?
Answer: The eSchoolNewsletter database is updated on a regular basis. Parents signup online and have the ability to edit at any time. In addition, the eSchoolNewsletter database constantly evolves. The emails are always accurate and fresh. As an example, if you are a middle school, by the end of June, your 8th graders will be moved to high school and new 6th graders from the feeder elementary schools, will have arrived in your database. You can send out newsletters during the summer to an accurate database if you wish. Also, only principals, PTA officials and county administrators can access the database. No one else can send emails. They can email to the entire school or a single grade. Each year, parents receive a list of important dates. We are current designing the system to automatically send out reminders of these important dates to the parents. Parents will receive several days advanced notice.
Question: Who can sign up for an eSchoolNewsletter account?
Answer: Anyone can sign up; however, the principal and approved users are the only ones that are permitted to send out emails.
Question: Will eSchool Systems write the newsletter for us?
Answer: No. eSchool systems does not prepare newsletters, we only provide the databases to collect parent email addresses. Parents stop by eSchoolNewsletter.com and signup for YOUR newsletters. Principals then send out all types of messages and newsletters to the parents that have requested them.
Question: Will eSchoolNewsletters replace our current paper newsletter?
Answer: The goal is to collect 60-85% of all your parents email addresses. So you might still want to distribute your current paper newsletter the old fashioned way.
Question: So if we still need to distribute a manual paper newsletter, why bother to collect parent email addresses?
Answer: You will never be able to reach 100% of the families, however, if you can get 50-75%, that's not too bad. With most schools, they aren't actually attempting to replace the hardcopy of their newsletters, but rather, they want to improve their coverage. Many times, newsletters never make it out of the backpacks. With this system, parents can read the newsletters in their offices if they want. Plus, when schools have an addition to their website, they can send an email to the parents and quickly invite them to the website for a peek. And in a case of an emergency, notifying 75% of the parents in 10 seconds is better than 0%.
Question: How do we get the word out to the parents?
Answer:
- If you have an existing email distribution list, send out an announcement to everyone inviting them to eSchoolNewsletter.com . Tell everyone that this is the new way to communicate effectively and that the old email list will be discarded.
- Place an announcement in your current paper newsletter. Keep a one liner in all future newsletters as well.
- Send home flyers in the backpacks of all students several times during the year.
- Place a link on your official school website using our logo directed toward http://www.eschoolnewsletter.com
- Distribute flyers at "Back-To-School" night and other social events.
Answer: All emergency announcements will come from the county administrator level.
Question: What is the delivery time?
Answer: The time it takes to send out your email to the parents depends on many factors such as the quantity of emails, the size of the email and the time of day. Most messages will go out within 30 minutes and we have several servers running together to improve delivery times.
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