Office of Instructional Technology

Blackboard Mass Notification (ParentLink)

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.