FreshSchools

"A great suite that covers all the basics, plus delivers really powerful fundraising tools"

Overall: After an exhaustive search and trial of school/community/PTA communication tools, we finally arrived at FreshSchools. Our core requirements for an online suite were: * Easy to use for all * Available on the web, mobile web, Android, iOS. * Must have well-developed fundraising tools * Affordable * Well organized volunteer opportunity fulfillment * Privacy, security and user choice * Great directory/roster After a few days trying out the software, it was clear that not only did it meet our needs, it exceed in many areas. It is clear that FreshSchools takes privacy and security seriously, and they communicate their practices on their main site. You can reach your content on any device, from anywhere, a must in today's multi-screen world. The cost is sensible, flexible, and much lower and other products that don't have nearly as much to offer. The integrated fundraising tools are really a huge boost to our small school community. The ability to be able to share fundraising event externally in a beautiful vibrant is key when sharing links across social media and traditional email. Being able to have one place to run reports is a big win for our fundraising volunteers. A simple volunteering interface bring a ton of value for our room parents, who now can create and manage events in one place and not worry about hunting down email addresses, they are all in the directory Glad to have a school store that is easy to maintain and use We have had great support from the FreshSchools team, and request for features has been delivered in a short time (weeks, not months) There are some places where FreshSchools is still growing and will get better I am sure: * Documentation is sparse * Customization is minimal * Full calendar sync is needed * Performance optimization (large lists can load slowly) * Integration of 3rd party tools like Google analytics Overall our school community has benefited from our FreshSchools adoption, and it has been a great fit for our needs.

Pros: Easy to use, and has integrated fundraising tools.

Cons: The use of discussion boards needs to be expanded. Any parent should be able to start one, and you should be able to reply to a post via email. Calendar sync a must.

"FreshSchools is a great tool for parent engagement!"

Overall: I started with FreshSchools early on and it has been a fantastic asset to our school. The school directory is a great way to put faces to names and figure out the parent/child relationships. How often do you see someone and you can't remember their name, but you know their child? FreshSchools makes it easy to look them up and save yourself that awkward dance of interacting with someone and trying to figure out their name. We have used the calendar extensively and piloted the communications functions for our Room Parents. Parents can sync their calendars and always be on top of what is happening at school. We rigged the volunteer system a bit to act as our Parent/Teacher Conference scheduler and the feedback we've gotten is that it is "easy peasy!" The best thing about FreshSchools is the support. When we were getting things set up, there were some hiccups and features that needed to be added and the willingness to listen to our requests an the immediate and friendly support from the FreshSchools team is incredible! We set up the school store and for the first time, our parents can buy merchandise online and it is incredibly easy to track and fulfill orders. FreshSchools is amazing and I HIGHLY recommend it!

Pros: The rapid pace of new features and responsiveness of the support team.

Cons: The emailing and communication features could be more robust, but with every week, new features are added and the support team is INCREDIBLY responsive.