Challenges
- A need to maintain contact and continue to provide support to students and families during remote learning
- A struggle to communicate timely information to parents about health protocols and school safety
- Overcoming language barriers between teachers and families
Solutions
Results
- 450% increase in the rate of reply in the first year of using PowerSchool Communication
- 30-fold increase in family attendance at the annual Title 1 meeting
- 50% increase in the number of messages sent per student in the 2019-2020 school year
Paducah Public Schools in Kentucky is on a mission to inspire all students to achieve excellence, explore opportunities, and realize their full potential.
With the disruptions to learning over the last two years, this mission, along with the district’s goal of ensuring every student is college and career ready, has become increasingly more important. The district’s partnership with Kinvolved, which began in spring 2019, has provided the tools and resources needed to not only meet challenges head-on, but to also increase family engagement.
Ensuring equity for all families around district communications was especially important to Paducah’s leadership team. KiNVO’s emails, voice calls, and especially SMS messaging, translated into more than 80 languages, are ensuring that all students and families have equitable access to information. And it’s working. In the first year of implementation the district saw a 450% increase in the rate of reply.
Elementary principal Kristy Smith Lewis saw immediate results after implementing KiNVO, stating, “It has been an integral part of communication with families, especially during COVID. The ability for these messages to be translated into their home language has been a huge plus.”
Staff and administrators have successfully used KiNVO to connect with families around pandemic health protocols, ensuring students were in school and learning safely. Surveys sent through KiNVO have made it easy for families to ask for help and for the Family Support team to provide it.
By providing relevant and timely information that is easily accessible for parents, the district has also seen an increase in family engagement around student learning. Troy Brock, Director of Pupil Personnel, credits KiNVO’s two-way translated communications with driving visits to the Parent Portal: “The two-way communications allow me to help parents access their Parent Portal so they can keep track of their student’s grades, attendance, and behavior, and complete online registration each year. Several teachers send out family engagement messages letting parents know what their children learned in class today. Prompts are provided to have ‘dinner table discussions’ about what they’ve learned.”
Automated and equitable two-way translated communications have helped Paducah Public Schools build strong district-to-home and school-to-home relationships. Kinvolved is proud to work side-by-side with the district as it meets—and exceeds—the goals it has set around communications, attendance, and family engagement.