Stafford Municipal School District can now reach 99.3% of parents across all five campuses after replacing seven communication tools with a single platform called ParentSquare.

Verlincia Prince, the district's parent, family and community engagement coordinator, led the switch. She pushed for consolidation when Stafford MSD's contract with School Messenger was ending. Before the change, each campus used its own tools, including ClassDojo and Remind, and no administrator had a districtwide view of who was being contacted or how.

Four of the seven replaced tools were ones the district had been paying for, according to the district.

The shift matters most for attendance. Prince said outreach to families now begins after one or two days of absence rather than after a pattern has formed. For a district where 75.1% of students are economically disadvantaged and roughly 81 are experiencing homelessness, early contact can uncover barriers that keep kids home.

"Sometimes they tell me that they didn't have clean clothes … Or if they say, 'We had to move,' let me figure out how to get you transportation," Prince said in a case study published by ParentSquare, the platform's maker, on Thursday, Oct. 1.

Stafford MSD holds an average daily attendance rate above 94%, according to the case study.

Prince, who also serves as the district's McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act liaison, uses a private ParentSquare group to connect families experiencing homelessness with donated goods. When Soles4Souls donated 135 pairs of new shoes, she distributed them through the private channel so no family had to visit the office or be identified publicly.

As a Title I district serving 3,532 students across grades PK-3 through 12, Stafford MSD is required to communicate with families in a language they understand. The district said the platform's automatic translation feature helps meet that requirement without adding bilingual staff. ParentSquare also includes StudentSquare, which runs on student iPads in grades 3 through 12, giving students without cell service a way to reach an adult at school.

District leadership set an expectation that all family and student communication runs through ParentSquare rather than personal phones or outside apps, according to the case study. When the district received a public information request covering every communication about a single student, the full record was retrievable from the platform in one search.

Prince also runs anonymous parent surveys through ParentSquare, and the responses feed into campus improvement plans and Title I documentation.

The Stafford MSD board meets the second Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in the Leonard Scarcella Administration Building.