Messaging families

Messages in the sidebar is a two-pane screen: Threads on the left, the conversation on the right.

Start a thread

Select + above the thread list, type a Thread topic…, and select Create.

The topic is the only thing you provide. You do not choose recipients in the web app — participants are worked out for you from the thread. If you need to reach a specific group deliberately, use the staff mobile app, where New Message lets you choose All Families, a Classroom or a Child’s Parents.

Read and reply

Click a thread. The header shows the topic, how many participants there are, and the child it relates to. Type in the box at the bottom and press Enter to send.

• ✓ means sent, ✓✓ means seen.
• You can see when someone else is typing.
• Load older messages fetches more history.
• Opening a thread marks it read. To mark one unread again, right-click it in the list.

What it does not do

• No attachments. Share photos through Photos & Media, published to parents.
• No announcement or broadcast from the web app. Facility-wide and classroom messages are sent from the staff app.
• No indication of whether a parent was notified. Parents control message notifications in their own app, so assume a message may go unread for a while.

House rules worth keeping

• One family per thread. Never name another family’s child.
• Medical instructions, incidents and anything with a deadline need a channel with a confirmation — a phone call, or an incident report. Chat has no read receipt you can rely on for those.
• Anything you write can be read later by every adult on that child’s account, and may be produced in a dispute. Write it accordingly.