Messaging Overview

[For all Staff] Learn how the brightwheel Message feature can be leveraged to communicate with staff and families.

Sabrina avatar
Written by Sabrina
Updated over a week ago

Enhancing parent communication is a key focus for brightwheel. The messaging platform offers a streamlined, all-in-one solution for parents, staff, and the program, ensuring communication remains within the brightwheel environment. Reply easily on any device, be it the mobile app or web.


Messaging in brightwheel

Within brightwheel, users can communicate through various messaging options. Messages can be categorized with types, include attachments (media or files), and utilize structured communication features like Announcements and Newsletters, enhancing communication and readability for parents and staff.

This feature has been specifically designed for school administrators to better communicate with parents and there are a few options that can be selected to determine who should receive/be able to view the messages:

  • Individual parent(s) (and visible by all staff)

  • Individual parent(s) (and only visible by admins/managers)

  • Entire Room(s)/Program

Any teacher or staff member can draft and send messages to parents of any student(s) assigned to their rooms.

Any admin or staff member can draft and send messages to each other for easy communication in the program without having to leave brightwheel.

Parents can reply in a threaded message to any communication from teachers or staff as well as send new messages to communicate Late Drop Off, Late Pick Up, Early Pick Up, and Absent notifications.

ℹ️ When administrators or teachers message a student's contact, it's crucial to consider the student's enrollment status.

Messages sent to contacts of students who have an Active enrollment status and have been assigned to the selected room, will receive the message. But if you need to message a student contact, and that student's enrollment status is set to anything other than active, please use our bulk message option on the Admissions Dashboard to ensure the message is sent to the contact!


Advanced Communication Features

 In addition to sending general instant messages back and forth between parents and teachers, brightwheel has created features to further improve the effectiveness of communication:

  • Announcements - Announcements allow Admins/Managers to message an entire room at once and can be a great way to communicate brief classroom updates, events for the week, and more.

  • Newsletters - Newsletters can be created by any teacher or administrator on the web. This is a great way to communicate with groups of parents on a regular basis in a more formal, structured way.


Viewing All Messages

Administrators are granted access to a convenient admin messaging panel to view all the conversations happening throughout their organization, so there's no need to navigate to individual rooms to gain insight!

Learn more about Viewing Parent Messages and Viewing Staff Messages in the linked resources.

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