Blackboard Mass Notification, formerly known as ParentLink, is a communications tool that leverages the Internet and Voice Over IP technology to enable the Great Neck Public Schools to contact thousands of high school students, staff members, and parents/guardians with important announcements in a variety of ways in a very short period of time. With Blackboard Mass Notification, we can send a message by phone, text, and/or e-mail to recipients with translations for those whose primary language is something other than English. The kinds of messages we send include:
- Routine district messages
- Routine school messages
- Urgent messages (such as school closings or emergency announcements)
- Attendance messages
- Lunch balance messages
This secure Web site enables you to update your personal contact information such as work phone, cell phone, text-message address, and e-mail address, and schedule each method of contact to receive school district messages in the most convenient way for you. It also stores a history of messages you've received in text and audio format.
Parent Involvement and the Home-School Connection
ParentLink improves the home-school connection by keeping parents informed in the event of an emergency or another important school announcement.
Key Features
- Receive more timely and accurate information from the school district.
- Receive phone calls, text messages or e-mails at home, at work, or on your cell.
- Update your own contact information and schedule each type of device for your own personal convenience.
- Capable of sending messages recorded by district staff in their own voice, or converting text into speech.
- Capable of sending messages in languages other than English.
- Eliminates the need for maintaining the older and less than reliable snow-day telephone chains.
- Reduces cost for paper, postage, ink, and labor by diminishing the need to send paper documents home to parents.
- Web-based interfaces makes the system user-friendly and provides a history of previous messages in text and audio formats.
- Robust reporting features to track messages and identify bad numbers to improve message delivery.
