Communication Resources
Catapult CMS / Website Login (Always log in using your district Gmail emails)
If you need help with something related to Remind or Catapult, please email
Taryn Smith at tsmith@ontario.k12.or.us
Remind Admin Training Recording:
Access Passcode: ontariosd8c!
Resources:
Manually adding people to a class
* note that teachers will need to claim their classes after rostering is completed. This article provides instructions for teachers and this article details how an administrator can see which classes have not yet been claimed.
*Please remember, all communications within Remind are subject to monitoring by District Personnel & your School Administrator(s).
Remind Help & Tutorials (Click the Drop Down to Expand)
Hi Teachers and Staff - The Ontario School District is in the process of rolling out Remind for the 22-23 school year! If you're not already familiar with Remind (short video), it's a classroom messaging tool that helps you engage students and parents every day. As part of this rollout, official accounts will be created for you. Follow the steps in the activation email to set up your account on Remind. If you already have an account, you'll be prompted to merge it so you can keep all of your information in one place. Here is a resource to familiarize yourself with what is coming, and additional information below. Remind has prepared a resource guide for you as well, here, with message templates and ways other teachers are using the platform.
If you can’t find your Remind activation email in your school inbox, go to this link and type in your school email address to access your rostered account.
If you have duplicate accounts, you can self-merge your accounts together.
If you have duplicate classes, you should keep one class active and archive the others; if necessary, you can always move people from one class to another before archiving.
If you have an old class on your dashboard, feel free to archive the inactive class(es).
If you have any existing classes you wish to keep active, please make sure it is linked to your school to take advantage of our Remind plan benefits.
If you are missing a class, it was likely archived accidentally. You can always unarchive classes from the Settings tab.
If you have manually created a class, ensure it is connected to your school to take full advantage of the district’s Remind plan.
To add people to your class, select the “Add people” button to the top right of your class page.
To “merge” classes together, start by moving people from one class to another by selecting the class, and then clicking on the participant(s) you wish to move. After you have everyone in one class, feel free to archive the other class(es).
To change your class name, please do so from the settings tab.
To remove people from your class, click the People tab on the class and find the participant(s) you wish to delete. Click their name, click on the three dots button on the right side panel, and then "Remove from class."
To see how people receive your messages, view the symbol next to their name from your “People” list.
To verify whether the announcements you send are successfully delivered to all the people you send them to, click the header of the announcement.
If you have parents and students who prefer to receive messages in another language, you can change their preferred language from the People tab
Sending a Message
I want to send a message to: an individual, a group, or a class
Turn off replies to mass messages
If you are sending a school-wide remind alert and do not want to receive any reply messages, follow the steps, HERE.
Teacher User Expectations
Teacher Expectations
Teachers will use Remind to communicate with parents and/or students. This includes class announcements and 2-way messaging.
Recommendations
Class settings (class visibility, request to join, participant messaging) should follow district recommendations. Any changes should be discussed with the school administrator. Your settlings are set to a district-wide default, for security and consistency purposes. If you would like to discuss changing these setting, please contact Taryn Smith at tsmith@ontario.k12.or.us
Class announcements to enhance student and parent engagement should be sent on a weekly cadence. Class announcements related to assignments, special events, etc. should be sent to students and/or parents on an as-needed basis.
1:1 messages should be sent as needed to build rapport, check in on student progress, grades, behavior, attendance, discuss individual needs, etc.
Teachers should use voice calls in Remind when calling families and not their personal number.
Sensitive and/or personal information should not be sent in Remind messages (ex. contact information, student IEP information, etc.)
Teachers should set office hours and communicate office hours to parents.
Managing replies: Teachers should follow district recommendations for enabling or disabling replies; in order to keep open and timely communication, please respond to all messages meriting a response in a timely manner. Keep to your office hours and try to communicate with students/families within business hours.
Teachers who teach students 13 years and under are unable to send direct messages to students.
Teachers who teach students over the age of 13 should only send direct messages related to academic, behavior, attendance, and other school-related topics and should include parents as needed.
Additional expectations on message content, staff-staff communication, teacher-to-student/parent communication and other Remind usage will be communicated to teachers by school leaders during training.
Teachers should follow internal school protocol for reporting misuse in Remind. Additionally, teachers may report misuse to Remind from their Remind accounts.
Remind is not to be used for personal communications unrelated to school/students.
Personal classes not related to school should not be linked to the school in class settings (ex. girl scouts/boy scouts).
For technical support or questions on an individual Remind account (password reset, merging accounts, etc.), staff are expected to email the Remind support team at support@remindhq.com from their official school email address or via the Remind help center at rmd.me/help
Non-Teaching staff/coaches/counselors/pics
Non teaching staff in the Ontario School District may use Remind to communicate as needed for school related purposes.
Remind Recommendations
Non-teaching staff (counselors, coaches, office staff, etc) should have the role of “teacher” at the school, unless a school administrator has granted administrator access-for admin access requests, please contact Taryn Smith.
Non-teaching staff (counselors, coaches, office staff, etc) may create manual classes for school-related purposes, such as: sports teams, transportation, extracurricular activities, staff-to-staff communication).
All manually created classes related to school activity must be linked to the appropriate school.
Non-teacher staff are expected to follow the same guidelines as teachers in regards to message content and communication with students (see teacher expectations section).
Staff that was not added to the school via rostering or a direct invite from an administrator must join the school via the school code. School administrators reserve the right to deny the request/remove any user.
All staff members are expected to report any inappropriate behavior/content in Remind to the school administrator immediately and contact the Remind support team at support@remindhq.com.
For technical support or questions on an individual Remind account (password reset, merging accounts, etc.), staff is expected to email the Remind support team at support@remindhq.com from their official school email address or via the Remind help center at rmd.me/help
Remind for extracurriculars (sports, clubs, etc)
Remind should be used as the official communication platform for all non-academic, school-related activities including but not limited to sports teams, clubs, afterschool programming, and student-led initiatives.
Recommendations
Classes may be manually created for school-sponsored initiatives such as:
sports teams
clubs
PTA groups
Any class related to school-sponsored initiatives must:
be linked to the appropriate school in the class settings.
have at least one school staff member/advisor as the class owner.
Students (ex. sports captain, student council) may only be listed as co-owners of classes with the approval of the primary class owner.
Classes must be archived when it is no longer needed (ex. end of term, end of sports season).
In the event that a class needs to transition class ownership, the primary class owner should add their successor as a co-owner, and then remove themselves as the owner. In the event the primary owner does not transfer ownership, the school administrator should reach out to the Support team at support@remindhq.com to transition class ownership.
Transitioning from a free account to OSD account
Guidelines for teachers transitioning from a free Remind account
Teachers who have used Remind in the past may have a pre-existing account with active classes. With the Remind plan, it is recommended that teachers consolidate accounts so that they may have access to Remind plan features.
Recommendations for teachers:
Teachers must ensure their existing user account is linked to the necessary school(s).
Teachers must maintain an accurate district-issued email address on their account at all times.
Teachers must add their mobile phone number to their rostered Remind account.
If teachers have duplicate accounts, teachers must merge accounts via the Remind support team.
If a teacher has pre-existing classes, Remind recommends the following:
Teachers must link any classes used for official school communication to the appropriate school.
Teachers must archive classes that are no longer active.
Teachers must not link personal classes not associated with the school community.
Administrators should remove non-recognizable classes from their organization.
For rostered schools and districts, teachers should use rostered classes.