BY JEFF CHUDZINSKINorth Country This Week

MASSENA -- Parents with children enrolled in the Massena Central School district will have a new communication platform for the 2024-25 academic year as the district looks to transition to ParentSquare.

Superintendent Ron Burke said the platform has "a strong record of improving communication between home and school."

The district's administrative team will begin learning how to use the program over the next few weeks to provide "better communication with all stakeholders," according to Burke.

According to Nicole Charleston, district director of curriculum, instruction and assessment, said multiple tools like ClassDojo and Messenger were used for communication purposes.

She said with so many platforms in play for communication with families, it became hard to navigate the information being sent to families, "especially if you have multiple children in different buildings."

She said the goal of the district was to clean up communication forms and find one platform that met the district's needs.

Enter ParentSquare, a platform that is currently utilized by 10 out of 18 school districts in the county.

Charleston said after just a couple of demonstrations with the administrative team and the district technology team it became obvious that ParentSquare would fulfill the district's needs.

For parents interested in learning more, information will be made available at the Ready 4 School event to be held prior to the start of the school year.

“I’m going to have a table set up and we’ll help families set things up on their end. ParentSquare is one central tool. It’s a two-way parent engagement," she said.

Staff will also have optional training made available for them this summer, along with time on the opening day of school to engage with the program and receive hands-on training.

Officials say they hope to have the program fully implemented by the start of school in September.