Iowa City Community Schools Implements new Parent - Communication Platform

MINNEAPOLIS - Feb. 10, 2015 - PRLog -- Iowa City chose GuideK12SchoolSearch™ as boundary visualization tool to communicate new school boundaries to families for the ’15-’16 school year

Iowa City Community Schools (http://www.iowacityschools.org/pages/ICCSD) has completed the process of designing, approving and announcing  new elementary boundaries for the 2015-2016 school year. To communicate these changes, the district is leveraging new technology tools, making interaction with parents easier.

Iowa City Community Schools is utilizing GuideK12’s SchoolSearch™, (http://www.guidek12.com/schoolsearch/) a school locator tool recently launched by GuideK12 (http://www.guidek12.com).  Administrators chose SchoolSearch to provide a more efficient way to share assigned school details and other information from the Iowa City Schools homepage with the parents in the community.   Now, by simply entering an address in to the site, parents are able to see new school boundaries and their student’s assigned school for the 2015-2016 school year.

The district has a multi-faceted, comprehensive plan to communicate the upcoming changes and new boundaries to the families of their students. A standard letter was sent to all parents affected by the boundary changes letting them know they now have access to SchoolSearch, the new address look-up tool.  In addition, the district has developed a brochure for each school in the district, which provides achievement and demographic data about the school and includes a QR code allowing parents to quickly and easily determine school assignments from any mobile device.

To ensure the transition to SchoolSearch is seamless, appropriate front office personnel will receive instruction on the tool so they are able to quickly and easily answer any questions from parents.

“SchoolSearch will be invaluable to our parents and the front office staff at each of our sites. Parents will get the information they need faster and easier, significantly lowering the number of calls to our front office,” said IA City CIO, David Dude.  “This tool will make it easy for us to ensure families are registered at the correct school and eliminate many headaches that come with boundary changes. Address files can get a bit messy, SchoolSearch will help us detect mistakes or incorrect addresses and ensure we have valid addresses in our system.  This is a win for our district and the families we serve and we are excited about moving forward.”  David Dude, CIO

GuideK12 (http://guidek12.com/)SchoolSearch (http://guidek12.com/schoolsearch/), is designed to provide a better way for districts to communicate boundaries, program or school options and more to parents in their community. SchoolSearch is the most comprehensive online communication tool that districts can provide to parents for more informed decisions on school location and program selection.   Iowa City benefits from SchoolSearch as customers of the entire GuideK12 analytic suite of products; however, SchoolSearch is also available as a stand-alone offering for districts needing an updated, customizable address tool for their school district website.

To learn more about GuideK12’s new SchoolSearch product, please visit http://guidek12.com/schoolsearch. (http://guidek12.com/schoolsearch/)

About GuideK12™:

Based in Eagan, MN, GuideK12LLC is a geovisual analytics software company, which enables education decision makers to instantly explore and analyze school district data by adding a geographic and visual dimension to their student and community information.   By visualizing information spatially, decisions on everything from boundary analysis, to policy changes to resource planning and forecasting enrollments can be more insightful and faster.  Named a finalist for a 2013 SIIA CODiE award for best enterprise solution and selected by the NSBA as a technology showcase company, GuideK12 serves large metro, suburban and rural school districts throughout the United Sates. It is owned by private investors and a private investment group based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For more about GuideK12™, please visit: www.guidek12.com