With the new school year just around the corner, the school has already begun to make some changes for the upcoming year. One of these changes is transitioning to a new communication platform: ParentSquare.
The school’s newsletter states: “Blue Valley Schools is transitioning to ParentSquare as its unified, districtwide communication platform for the 2026-27 school year. This secure system brings school, athletics, activities and district communication into one place, creating a more consistent experience with built-in translation and multiple notification options to keep all families and students informed and connected.”
ParentSquare is similar to previous communication platforms, like BAND and GroupMe, in which students can message teachers and peers, however, there are more utilities they can use. On the platform, they can see their class schedules, messages and posts from teachers and classmates, and a school-wide calendar of all events and activities.
Students have already received emails to activate their StudentSquare account in ParentSquare for next school year, so they can get used to the new platform before the year begins. Some students, including junior Oluwadarasimi Onibonoje, think this change will be inconvenient and difficult to adapt to.
“We should stick to what’s been working instead of changing communication platforms every year,” Onibonoje said. “I think that stability is important, especially in a school setting, and continuing to change platforms and making it so that students are unfamiliar with the things they need to communicate is detrimental to the school as a whole.”
Due to the upcoming phone ban also being introduced, students will only be able to communicate through ParentSquare on their computers during school hours, but they will be able to access the platform on their phones as well on the ParentSquare mobile app.
“Since we’re not going to have our phones next year, that’s not going to work out very well,” Onibonoje said. “Having your computer out to talk to anybody, to be able to send them something or let someone know something, is so incredibly inconvenient.”
Onibonoje also said that the platform was confusing to navigate.
“I’ve logged into it once or twice; it looks extremely confusing,” Onibonoje said. “I’m pretty tech savvy … but trying to figure out what was going on there was kind of infuriating.”
Others, including French teacher and KAY Club sponsor Gretchen Meyer do not think the change will cause issues.
“It will really just be a question of ‘does it create more problems than it solves?’” Meyer said. “It doesn’t really matter to me as long as the messaging is consistent, and it doesn’t create massive amounts of headaches for multiple people across the district, that’s really the only priority.”
Meyer said the transition from BAND to ParentSquare will change how activities, like KAY Club, communicate with members and plan events.
“In terms of the routine communications about sign-up opportunities, volunteer opportunities, upcoming events, we have a communications officer who’s responsible for that because it’s a student leadership club,” Meyer said. “And so, just making sure that I know how it works so that I can then teach my communications officer how it works, that’s really the biggest thing that I need to do.”
Students and sponsors will need to learn and adapt to get used to the new platform.
“I know some people in the district are upset about it,” Meyer said. “I’m not upset about it as long as, like I said, it doesn’t create significantly more headaches, but that’s to be seen. We’ll figure out what we can.”
