Classlist 2024: Partnering with Schools for Secure Communities

Keeping your community secure

Looking back at 2024, my product team and I have been dedicated to two important goals: boosting data security and building stronger connections with school staff.

New in 2024 was the Classlist Sync Wizard, which enables school communities to invite and manage their parent membership using the data on the school roll.

The benefits this brings for a school’s parent community include:

• The information is updated in one place. The Management Information System is the source of truth!
• Move up effort is reduced by syncing Classlist with the MIS directly, using iSAMS or Wonde.
• Parent records are kept up-to-date and families who have left are automatically removed from Classlist.
• Staff, such as IT or Admissions who oversee software solutions and privacy agreements, can manage parent membership in line with school policies and parent preferences. 
• Community creators are freed up to do more of the things they love!

Working Hand-in-Hand with School Staff

As part of this change, the Staff Admin role has been undergoing an update. In order to support the parent community, there are now two permission levels for Staff Admins:

• Staff, such as teachers, marketing professionals or parent relations can join Classlist as a Staff Admin in order to communicate, fundraise, or collaborate with parents on events or by setting up interest groups.
• Specific staff members, - often IT or Admissions, - can have additional user management permissions to ensure the right parents are invited to the school and to use the Sync Wizard.

Collaboration with other admins also increased with a shared view of scheduled announcements.

The Sync Wizard means new parents at schools using this method join Classlist using our new parent registration experience, validating their email address for enhanced security and getting with a preview of the features along the way. 

Parent profiles got a boost with the addition of 'tap to view' full screen profile and cover images. 

Making events more successful

All Staff Admins can now access the public event webpage, where available, from their Classlist Admin account. This allows staff to join in as a guest and get tickets to community events. 

Fundraising potential has grown with the latest addition to raffles; now customers can buy one of the predefined ticket bundles OR specify how many tickets they would like to purchase, enabling greater sales. Flexibility for our users is one of the key design principles we follow here at Classlist.

We also helped our event and pop-up shop organisers by adding in the ability to shuffle the order in which tickets are displayed, as well as better management of questions related to tickets as well as sending notes to guests and easier time selection for events.

Meanwhile, hosts of private events can also send notes with urgent or important updates to their guests, something long requested!

Listings usage is growing and we’ve added in the filters needed to help parents find what they’re looking for.

So what about 2025?

We will continue to listen, adapt and evolve the product to meet users' changing needs as well as new technological opportunities.

We know we need to make the experience feel more connected between the admin and parent-side with smoother navigation as we bridge better the old and the new and refresh some of the older aspects of Classlist. The Classlist Events platform will receive some TLC along the way.

As community builders your role is crucial to our vision. We are planning enhancements to make the platform more user-friendly, ensuring smoother integration between admin and parent experiences.

Since parents spend over 90% of their online time on mobile devices, we are shifting away from emails to boost engagement. Additionally, we are developing new analytic tools to help you better understand and enhance your community engagement.

We value your continued dedication to building strong school communities. Your teamwork with parents and school staff forms the foundation for successful Classlist communities, and we are committed to supporting you every step of the way.