The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts has found a unique way to address the challenges that come when students live and learn away from home. ASMSA will bridge the distance between the school and its students’ families with technology.
Recently, ASMSA partnered with Possip to empower parents to routinely share praise and constructive feedback about their family’s experience with the school. ASMSA is the first school in Arkansas to use Possip, and the first residential school to partner with the EdTech company, recently named by the Nashville Business Journal as one of Nashville’s top start-ups to watch in 2020.
Parents were able to share praise about teachers and culture.
“My daughter’s teacher contacted me because she had noticed she seemed sad and homesick. She just wanted to make sure I knew. I was so impressed that she had taken the time to get to really know our daughter and recognized that something was off with her.”
Parents are also able to share feedback, needs, or ideas.
This ability for parents to have a routine and easy way to share their thoughts and ideas is very important to ASMSA. One of the nation's top public schools, students come from 50 counties across Arkansas to live and learn within a community of 230 intellectual peers. Many students attending ASMSA live 3 to 4 hours away from the school’s Hot Springs campus.
“Schools like ASMSA are redefining family engagement by showing parents that they don’t have to be physically present in a school building to participate in their child’s school experiences,” said Shani Dowell, founder and CEO of Possip.
“Whether parents are working, providing military service, or have their kids at a residential school, they should still be able to easily participate in their child’s school experience.”
“Our students don’t have traditional time at home with parents. We get to see one part of their daily lives - but parents have important information as well,” said ASMSA Director Corey Alderdice. “We are using this tool to remove any barriers for families who want share and participate in ASMSA’s community of learning.”
Possip—so named from a mashup of positive gossip—was created by a former educator and school parent based in Nashville, Tenn. Shani Dowell, whose own children are in elementary school, shared “We know that parents and school staff share a goal of creating the best school experience possible for kids. The research is clear that an engaged parent body is one of the surest ways to achieve that goal.”
In the simple form of a text message, which can be sent in over 100 languages, Possip sends parents routine prompts asking about their happiness, praise and feedback for schools and gathers the responses into an actionable report for principals. Possip staff crafts each report, surfacing and organizing praise and feedback into priorities and recommendations for follow-up or development.
ASMSA will use the bi-weekly reports in the school’s weekly Strategies Team meetings. The group of nine employees includes staff across the academic and residential experience. The Possip report provides additional opportunities for student intervention and parent engagement.
“We were incredibly pleased with the format of the report and the insights we gained,” said Alderdice. “We have already used the first round of feedback to follow up directly with parents while also using their suggestions for new programs and opportunities as we plan for the next academic year this fall.”
Learn more about Possip at www.possip.com.