What’s New in School Signals
A look at recently added School Signals features.
October 2026
“Keep Private” Option in Post Approval | For schools that require approval of parent posts and comments, we have expanded the approval options.
Before: Administrators could approve or delete posts and comments. If a post/comment contained private information, admins couldn't approve it, which made the process unclear for the author and other admins.
Now: Using the post's three-dot menu, administrators can keep the post private. “Keep Private” marks the post/comment as reviewed and keeps the post/comment visible for admins and the author, without publishing it for the larger school community.
The “Posts/comments for approval” button now appears when there are posts or comments from the past 14 days that need review.
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| Teachers can now leave a message for the parent in the sign-up interface. For example, a teacher might include a Zoom meeting link. Once a message is added, the system sends an email notification to the parent containing the message.
Additionally, we've improved the display of private notes and messages to/from the parent, so they are easier to notice. |
| We've made it easier to set up multi-day conferences with varying times. Once you set the start and end dates, you can adjust the beginning and end times for each day without using the block time feature in the listing. |
| Teachers can now adjust their notification settings for posts made to grade levels. For instance, a middle school teacher can turn off notifications for grade-level posts made to the elementary level. Teachers can still see the posts in their feed, so they stay in the know. |
| We've adjusted the event image display so it's no longer cropped to a specific ratio and is shown as-is. Users can now also click the image to view it larger. These changes make it easier for users to read any information (text) displayed on the image. Kindly note: It is still recommended to include all event details in the text description to support multilingual families and families who use screen readers. |
September 2026
| Text message notifications beyond critical alerts require that members verify their phone number in My Account. You can now trigger verify phone number reminders. Go to Parent Accounts and click the megaphone button. |
| School Admins and Teachers can now export chat threads as PDF files. Go to the chat message thread, click the Chat’s “i” icon, and select Export. |
| Admins may need to reach out to parents about important school matters. To make sure that parents receive these private messages, we have added text message notifications for admin-sent chats. Parents still need to have their phone number verified to receive these text messages. If you rather not use this feature, please contact Support. |
| You can now grant a teacher with School Admin rights, or if you need a School Admin to be listed in Teacher lists, you can give them a teacher role. Learn more. |
| You can now export data from the Parent Accounts to Excel. For instance, you might want to filter the accounts by a specific status and export the results. Check also the new status filter options to see which accounts have opted for text or voice messages. Learn more. |
August 2026
| Priority Post text message notifications are now standardized to include the School Name, Post Title, a message of up to 200 characters, and a link to the post. Voice message notifications follow the same format. Learn more. |
| School Admins can now restrict teacher posting rights. These settings are available under Feed Mgmt > Access Rights > Feed. You can now limit posting to the School-wide News channel to School Admins only. You can also prevent teachers from posting to grade-level feeds. When both restrictions are enabled, teachers can post only to Classrooms and to membership-based Groups and Clubs. |
| School Admins can now switch off chat messaging feature entirely. To access the setting, go to Access Rights > Chats. |
| School Admins can now add pending accounts into Groups, so that parents can be added to Groups before they have been invited and activated their accounts. |
| School Admins can now add external form links in the Premium plan schools. School Signals forms are still in the Ultimate plan. |
| Account Managers (the users who subscribed to and manages billing details with School Signals) are now listed also in the School Admins index page, for improved account management. |
July 2026
| Chat messages settings have now more options. School can require chat threads to always include a staff member. This setting can be applied for both parent chats and student chats. Learn more. |
| Schools can now create student accounts and allow limited access to the platform and app for students 13 and older. Admins can set the level for the student access and user rights. Student accounts are optional. Please contact Support to activate the feature. Learn more. |
| Schools can now create and manage student portfolios. Student portfolios are a way to provide private learning updates to the student's parents. In other words, only the student's parents see the portfolio entry. Learn more. |
| Users can now subscribe to School Signals calendars from the main School Calendar page. Once subscribed, entries and events sync to the user’s chosen personal online calendar. |
June 2026
| The Pages feature now includes Spanish translation option. Create the English page first and then after clicking 'Save', click 'Translate.' Learn more. |
| Schools can add links to externally managed forms so families can access them from the same place, alongside forms created in School Signals. Learn more. |
May 2026
| Parents and teachers can use the Submitted Forms tab to review forms they have previously submitted. The submission results were already showing up on the online forms page. This update provides a quicker view just to view the form results.
This page also displays the submissions for parents even if the form has been archived by the admin. |
| Admins can now make forms mandatory, and set a deadline for the form submissions. Admins can also set the reminder frequency and duration. Parents can be notified until one of the parents have filled out the form. Learn more. |
| School admins can now copy an existing posts and repost it as a new post. If edits are needed, you can edit the content before publishing. Learn more. |
April 2026
| Schools can now allow parents to participate in chat within Clubs & Programs. When activated, all parents within the club are automatically added to the chat group. |
| Users can bookmark posts to return to later. Learn more. |
Chat Translations | Chat messages are now translated to parent's home language. When a parent messages in their home language, the receiver sees the message in English (or their chosen language). There is a clear indicator if the message is translated from the original language. |
March 2026
| Administrators can print submitted form responses from the form results index page. |
| Parents who choose or have Spanish set as their language can now see all buttons and user interfaces in Spanish, too. |
| You can now heart comments. |
| Schools can now create volunteering opportunities that are not tied to a specific date and time. For instance, donations may not require showing up in person at a specific time. You can still set a deadline for the task. Learn more. |
February 2026
| Group Admins can control whether the group's membership tags are visible to people who are not members of the group. |
January 2026
| Priority posts include an option to notify a parent with a voice call. A voice call is created from the post text and does not require creating a recording. Voice calls are sent in the parent's home language. Voice calls are automatically included in Critical Alerts. Learn more. |
| District Admins can now publish News & Updates posts across a school district. All questions and comments appear in one feed for easy access for the District Admin. Learn more. |
| When a parent signs up for a volunteer task, they can now leave a note/comment for the community. |