Severe weather or a natural disaster can strike at any time and often without notice. Let’s Talk is a powerful tool to help your district communicate proactively with families, staff, students, and community members while providing a central location for answering questions and collecting feedback.  Whether you’re in the midst of a natural disaster or preparing for the future, we recommend the following steps to ensure Let’s Talk and your team is ready when a crisis strikes:   1. Identify your Crisis Response Team.  Every crisis involving a natural disaster will need leader ..read more

In today’s saturated media environment, many school districts are one blog post or tweet away from a crisis. Crises can happen easily and unexpectedly — like after a small error occurs or a miscommunication between school staff members reaches the public. One Michigan school district found themselves in this situation when an internal communications mix-up about mask mandates for the new school year accidentally went public. By the time the error was corrected, it had already gained attention from the community and the media.  No school district is immune to a crisis and it can happen at ..read more

Since 2020, the Let’s Talk Assistant chatbot has been helping school districts around the country provide superior customer service 24-7. We’ve been inspired by the way our district partners have adopted Let’s Talk Assistant and are using it to serve their school communities.  At K12 Insight, our goal is to help make that work easier.  We’re proud to introduce Let’s Talk Assistant 3.0, which includes updates that make it simpler for everyone on your team to work together to provide a positive experience for every student, parent, teacher, and community member. Let’s Talk Assistant 3 ..read more

While students are pressing the snooze button a bit longer than in years past, district leaders in California are facing new challenges as they navigate a new law that delays start times for middle and high school classes.  The law, which was passed in 2019, went into effect on July 1. Public middle schools can start classes no earlier than 8 a.m., followed by high schools at 8:30 a.m. Transportation is always a hot topic and these changes can be a wrench thrown into an already messy, chaotic time. For some school districts, we’re hearing how the reality of later start times is hitting ha ..read more

The back-to-school season is here and it’s likely your team is already sifting through endless questions, concerns, and requests from every direction.  Without a customer service strategy in place, this influx of inquiries can create an environment for slow, siloed, and inefficient communications — leading to overwhelmed staff and frustrated families.  Let’s Talk — the only all-in-one customer experience and intelligence platform built for education — can help you manage and unify communications in your school district, especially during the busy back-to-school months.  As you p ..read more

Let’s Talk by K12 Insight makes it easy for parents, students, staff, and community members to ask questions, request information, and share feedback With a strong commitment to superior customer service, Austin Independent School District has reached a new milestone answering over 100,000 dialogues through Let’s Talk — the only all-in-one customer experience and intelligence platform built for education.  “This is a huge milestone for Austin ISD because it illustrates how implementing superior customer service has made a lasting impact on our district community,” said Jason Stanford, Aus ..read more

During the back-to-school season, school districts see a spike in questions.  What is my child’s bus route? Is the lunchroom peanut-free? How are you handling COVID exposures?  The top districts that keep their students, staff, and funding have one thing in common: They deliver a superior customer experience. And during the back-to-school season, it’s more important than ever to provide clear communication and accessible information to prevent frustration and overwhelm.  During the last school year, three out of four parents said they couldn’t always identify the right person to ..read more

Families are more engaged and involved in public education than ever — meaning the number of inbound inquiries hitting school districts is increasing dramatically. This influx of communication can strain district staff without an effective system in place.  And according to K12 Insight’s National Report on Parent-School Trust and Engagement released in August 2022, when families reached out to their districts during the 2021-22 school year, they weren’t always satisfied with the help they received. A school district with a student enrollment of 10,000 can easily generate 26,000 inbo ..read more

From robocalls to mass emails, most school districts are experts at outbound communications — but with an average of 4,000 daily interactions for districts with 10,000 students, inbound inquiries can be a challenge.  The tangled web of inbound communications — including phone calls, emails, social media messages, and more — can contribute to districts losing the narrative from their communities and turn whispers into full-blown crises.    To protect itself from misinformation and negative perceptions, every school district must work to enhance one key feature of the sc ..read more

K12 Insight’s inaugural National Report on Parent-School Trust and Engagement analyzes the correlation between school customer service and parent engagement With so many educational options for the upcoming 2022-23 school year, customer service is vital for building trust, increasing parent satisfaction, and keeping families in K-12 public school districts, according to a new report published by K12 Insight today.  “Our nation’s public schools have a lot to lose and it is absolutely critical that districts improve customer service to increase family, student, and staff satisfaction,” said ..read more