Create newsletters easily on the web as a teacher or administrator. It's a convenient way to communicate with parents within the brightwheel app. While the messaging platform already offers many message types to communicate with parents day-to-day, newsletters are designed for long-form updates, making them ideal for monthly recaps, event highlights, or volunteer calls to action.
Create a Newsletter
Drafting a newsletter can be done from the message center on the web. In order to send a newsletter, it must contain a title and at least one section with a heading and text. Additional sections can be added in addition to photos to make your newsletter more readable and visually appealing.
Review the Newsletter Fields ↓
Review the Newsletter Fields ↓
Recipients - Select all of the rooms that should receive this newsletter, teachers must be assigned to the room in order to send the newsletter
Title - The title should be limited to 70 characters, it will be bolded at the top of the newsletter and be used in the message sent to parents altering them of the new newsletter.
Section - Each section contains the ability to add a photo, heading, and text. Add or remove sections as needed
Photo - One photo can be added to each section of the newsletter from the brightwheel photo library. The teacher must be assigned to the room in order to access the photos.
Section Heading - Each header is limited to 70 characters, it will be bolded at the top of each section beneath the photo.
Text - This is the body of the section and can include alphanumeric characters, line breaks, and emojis.
Add/Remove Section Blocks - Add new sections or remove ones that you do not need. A maximum of 30 sections is supported and you are unable to remove the last or only section.
New Newsletter
Click + New Newsletter
Select the room(s) that the newsletter should be sent to under Recipients
Enter your Newsletter Title
Add a Photo by clicking Select from your brightwheel library and choosing the room that contains your desired photo, click on the photo, and then Done
Enter your Header and Body text
Choose to Save as Draft or Preview before sending
💡 Only photos logged as an activity for a student can be added to newsletters. Please review our Log Activities Help Center article with steps for logging photos. Once photos are logged as an activity, providers can upload one photo at a time to the newsletter.
Copy a Previous Newsletter
Newsletters that have already been sent can be copied and edited as needed. The new newsletter will have all the content pre-filled out including, title and sections, but the recipient list will be left blank. This is great if you want to send a similar version of a newsletter to different rooms, or if you want to use last month's newsletter as a template for the current one. To duplicate a newsletter:
From the Sent Newsletters section, click Details on the newsletter that you would like to duplicate
Click Create a copy
Add Recipient rooms and edit any section as needed
Choose to Save as Draft or Preview before sending
Edit or Delete Drafted Newsletter
Once a title has been added to a newsletter it can be saved as a Draft. This allows teachers and administrators to save their incomplete work and come back to it later, or save a completed newsletter that should be sent later. All drafts will be listed at the top of the Newsletter tab with the option to Edit or Delete.
Edit Draft
Navigate to the message center of the brightwheel web app and click on the Newsletters tab. Locate the newsletter that needs editing and click Edit Draft. From here, follow the same steps listed in the Create a Newsletter section of this article.
Delete Draft
Deleting a draft that is no longer needed is done from the same Draft section of the Newsletter tab. Simply click Delete on the draft to be removed and confirm your action on the pop-up.
Preview & Send
Prior to any newsletters being sent, they must be previewed. This encourages additional proofreading and allows the sender to see the newsletter the same way the recipient will view it. From this screen, the teacher or administrator drafting the newsletter can either choose to Edit or Send.
When the Send button is clicked, brightwheel will immediately send the newsletter as a message to the parents of all active students in each room in the recipient list. The newly sent newsletter will now appear in the “sent” list and no longer be in the “draft” list.
Please Note: Administrators and teachers are only able to send newsletters that they created.
View Sent Newsletters
There are two ways to view sent newsletters: from the Newsletter tab on the web to the message center, or directly in the message threads of individual students. Once a newsletter is sent, parents will be notified and can view the newsletter on the mobile app, as seen here.
View Sent Newsletter
To view a sent newsletter in the message center, simply click on Details on the newsletter you would like to view. All sent newsletters will be listed in sequential order with the most recent listed first. This screen can also be filtered by Room and/or Send dated to more easily find a specific newsletter. The details page has a static view of the recipients and the newsletter text and images.
View in Message Thread
All newsletters will appear in each student's message thread as a special message type. Then newsletter message will display the newsletter's title and show which staff members sent the message. This view is the same for staff and parents
Tapping or clicking on this message will open the full newsletter to make it easier for the viewer to read it in its entirety. Simply tap the back icon to navigate back to the message thread.
Delete a Sent Newsletter
Once a newsletter has been sent it can be deleted from a student's message thread the same way that administrators can delete other message types. Learn more here. This will not delete the newsletter from the saved newsletter section, only the students' message threads.
Please note: Newsletters will also be removed from each thread that it was sent to when it is deleted from an individual thread.