Email Alerts for Parents Index  

Parents can receive automatic email alerts for attendance and grades based on custom conditions. (Available only if the school or teacher has a paid license; teachers with Free accounts are not included in the alerts.)

Attendance Alerts are sent whenever the student is absent that day, or optionally tardy. Any absence counts, even if excused, for any period.

Grade Alerts can be sent weekly (you choose which day) or daily (excluding weekends). They can be sent every time, or only when the following conditions exist:

Missing Assignments — if any assignment is missing in any class. (Only the Special Mark for "missing" will trigger an alert; blanks are zeros are not considered missing.) Parents will continue to receive alerts as long as the assignment is still marked "missing", so teachers may want to use a different mark after it is too late to turn in.

Low Grades — if the total grade is below a cutoff in any class. You can set the cutoff to F, D, C, or B. A grade of E will not trigger an alert, because most schools use E for Excellent. A grade of I for Incomplete will trigger like an F. Numeric grades and other letter grades do not generate alerts. Plus/minus signs are ignored, so a D+ will trigger an alert if the cutoff is D. This looks at the total grade only, not grades on specific assignments.


Each family has their own alert settings. Parents can login and go to the "Settings" page to customize their own alerts (but students cannot). Both parents share the same settings and receive the same alerts.

Admins can also set the alert conditions. The page is where you can edit settings for individual students, or click the "Bulk Edit" button to change the settings for everyone. (Teachers cannot change the alert settings because alerts apply to all classes, not just their own.)

Emails are sent between 4:00 and 5:00 PM local time. (See the Time Zone setting on the page.) A single email is sent for all periods.

Text Message Alerts can also be sent to parents' cell phones. They simply add their cell number as an additional email address, like the following:

    1115550000@txt.att.net (AT&T)
    1115550000@messaging.nextel.com (Nextel)
    1115550000@messaging.sprintpcs.com (Sprint)
    1115550000@tmomail.net (T-Mobile)
    1115550000@vtext.com (Verizon)
    1115550000@vmobl.com (Virgin Mobile)
    1115550000@teleflip.com (Any cell phone, no extra charge)

Note: Any email you send to parents will also be sent as a text message, which may not be practical because of size limits. Parents pay for these like any other text messages.


Troubleshooting — Alerts are not sent in the following cases:

•  If a teacher has their gradebook set Offline, of if you do not allow teachers to post grades online, it will not generate Grade alerts (but it will still send Attendance alerts).

•  Attendance alerts are sent for the current day only, so if teachers enter their attendance after 4 PM, no alert is sent.

•  Missing assignments must be marked with the Special Mark for "missing". Zeros and blanks do not trigger alerts.

•  If the school Time Zone is blank on the page, no alerts are sent.

•  Parent alerts are not applicable for colleges, so no alerts are sent if your page is set to Adult Education.

•  Of course parents must have a valid email address entered to receive alerts.