ABOUT HURON: School Communication

IMPORTANT INFORMATION
ABOUT SCHOOL COMMUNICATION

PowerSchool
PowerSchool access for students and parents will allow monitoring of progress and performance in school. AAPS will be using PowerSchool for grades, attendance and class information. PowerSchool is a great tool for communication between home and school, but remember that any questions you have about your son or daughter can still be answered by emailing or calling teachers, counselors, or administrators. Parent logins are available by contacting your student's grade level office. Logins can be mailed home or picked up with valid identification. Logins cannot be given over the phone or email.
For more information visit http://www.a2schools.org/powerschool.home/powerschool_family_access

Daily/School Bulletin
Available in PowerSchool for Parents and Student. Updated and read during school announcements daily. Also available without logging in to PowerSchool by visiting our school website http://a2huron.org. Parents may subscribe to daily or weekly emails by going to Email Notification in the PowerSchool parent portal.

Google Calendars
Calendars are a great reference for school activities and events. Calendars are updated daily. You can view our calendars online on our website. Available on our school website http://a2huron.org. Click on Calendars. You can also subscribe to our calendars if you have a Google account or use iCal. See the calendar web page for details.

What is SchoolMessenger?
SchoolMessenger is a notification system that will allow the district and our schools to improve communications with parents. The system integrates with PowerSchool for the most up-to-date contact information, and in the future we will be looking at connecting it to the transportation system, food services, and perhaps Community Education & Recreation's management system as well. Schools can make automated and/or pre-recorded calls to families, and send email messages home.

When will the system be used?
Calls and email messages will be sent when school is closed due to weather or other reasons (power outage, etc.). When at all possible, we will alert families the evening before that school will be closed the next day; such calls will go out no later than 10pm. Unfortunately, there are many times when this is not possible (e.g. power outage, boiler/furnace out, and some weather closings); in these cases, calls will go out no earlier than 6am.

Daily attendance calls will be made to homes of students with an unverified absence or who were marked tardy for at least one period that day. Attendance calls will be made at 6pm, Monday through Friday. The attendance calls do not differentiate between an absence or tardy; you can contact the school to determine what the specific attendance issue is, or you can log in to the PowerSchool parent portal and check your student's attendance record yourself.

Schools can also use the system for general announcements to the entire school OR targeted messages to grade level or other specific group of students. AAPS has given schools guidelines on the use of the system so that it is not used too much as we understand that no families want to receive too many calls. Email messaging to families has been turned on and we anticipate that will be the main way that schools will use the system to communicate with families.

Our PTSO uses SchoolMessenger to send weekly school updates, otherwise known as eNotes.

How do I update my contact information in the system?
Because SchoolMessenger is connected directly to PowerSchool, parents should log in to the PowerSchool parent portal if they need to update their contact information. After clicking the Update Contacts button at the top of the Parent Portal page, parents will be taken to the Update page where changes to phone numbers and email address information can be submitted for approval. Parent logins are available by contacting your student's grade level office. Logins can be mailed home or picked up with valid identification. Logins cannot be given over the phone or email.

Please note the following when updating your information:
•    Home address changes need to be verified by the building so parents can only "flag" that information so that the building secretary knows to give a follow-up call.
•    SchoolMessenger can only contact direct phone lines -- it cannot dial an extension -- so please enter only 10 digit phone numbers.
•    Once changes have been submitted, the grade level office secretary will need to confirm these changes in PowerSchool before they will go into effect in SchoolMessenger. Schools have been asked to complete this confirmation step in a timely manner. Once the confirmation has been made, the updated contact information will be uploaded to SchoolMessenger that night.

What if I want to receive only email messages OR only phone calls?
You do have the option of not receiving any phone calls, any emails, or both.

If you would like to opt out of phone calls completely, send an email message to webmaster@aaps.k12.mi.us and request to have your phone numbers blocked and include all phone numbers you wish to have blocked from receiving calls (e.g. home phone, work phone, cell phone). Blocking occurs on a by-number basis so if both/all parents/guardians wish to opt out of calls, all relevant numbers should be included in the request.

If you wish to opt out of receiving email messages completely, send an email message to webmaster@aaps.k12.mi.us and request to have your email address blocked from receiving messages. Email blocking occurs on a by-address basis so if both/all parents/guardians wish to opt out of email messages, all relevant email addresses should be included in the request.

Please note, however, that opting out of phone and/or email messages means that you will also not receive any emergency messages as well. We strongly discourage families from opting out.

I accidentally clicked the "Unsubscribe" link in an email message I received from the system; how do I start receiving messages again?
If you have mistakenly unsubscribed from messages via the link in an alert email message, send an email message to webmaster@aaps.k12.mi.us and request to have your email address unblocked from SchoolMessenger.