District to Launch Phone Notification System

We are pleased to announce the selection and approval for something that quite frankly has been missing from our selection of communication tools: a district-wide phone notification system. We will soon be able to further our goal for more effective communication with families.

At the September 28, 2010 School Board meeting, Trustees approved the purchase of the Teleparent notification system. This approval paves the way for MISD to begin the implementation phase for what we believe will become a crucial communication asset. TeleParent is an automated system that can send a message by phone or email to parents in minutes.

TeleParent was selected by a district-wide committee after researching and reviewing a variety of notification systems available to meet our District’s needs.

Messages can be sent by teachers to their students’ parents, by campus administrators to all or a select group of parents at their schools, and by the MISD administration to all parents in the district for District-wide situations or issues.

Benefits and usage details

• Teachers and administrators can use the system to schedule and record messages. Teachers go online to select messages specific to each student while administrators use both the internet and the telephone to schedule and record new broadcasts.


• The student messaging system gives teachers the ability to send messages to the entire class, or even messages tailored to each student.


• TeleParent supports over 20 different languages.


• Since teachers will be able to select from multiple message types, such as corrective, informational, rewarding, etc., TeleParent gives students another reason to perform their best in class. It is our hope that once students realize phone calls can be easily sent to their homes, they will be more likely to attend class, behave in class, complete assignments, study for tests, and improve their overall performance.


• TeleParent is tied into the district’s student information system and will be used to notify parents daily about student absences. (We have a few call-out systems currently being used in a few schools for attendance. TeleParent will replace those older systems.)


• TeleParent will be used when challenging situations develop to more effectively reach parents about bad weather closings, delays or dismissals as well as shelter-in-place announcements (commonly referred to as “school lockdowns”) or other emergencies.

The TeleParent notification system will be a valuable district communications tool. As with any new system, it will require training during the implementation phase. We appreciate your patience as we learn the system and maximize its usage.

Welcome to Infinite Campus

We are ready to introduce to the MISD community the Infinite Campus Parent Portal. A Web page dedicated to Infinite Campus has been created to start us off by providing FAQs, Campus Contact Matrix (who to go to with issues and questions), Reference Documents, and other related information.

The Infinite Campus Parent Portal Information page will be the dedicated location for updates, announcements, and future documentation as deemed necessary by the district.

We encourage parents to be patient as our teachers learn this new system.

The attendance site will be open in the Parent Portal on the first day of school (Monday, August 25, 2008.) There may be a delay of up to a week before actual daily attendance is posted to the Portal. This will allow for class leveling and schedule changes which occur at the opening of each school year.

The grade site will also be open on the first day of school. Again, there may be a delay of a week or two as schedules finalize and assignments are made and graded.

[Update August 22] Ok, so it would appear that with the new program, comes new problems. Here's what we posted to the Infinite Campus Info page earlier today:

We are experiencing some issues with Infinite Campus related to the volume of users. This problem is being addressed by MISD, Region 10 and Infinite Campus. We expect some continued issues and delays into next week.

Thank you for your patience.

Before people start commenting about how "bad the system is" or the "see I told you it wouldn't work" let's all take a deep breath and remember that Infinite Campus is very large program and we are a comparatively large school district. Let's allow for a reasonable amount initial glitches and issues while we all adjust to the new system.

Goodbye eSembler, Hello Infinite Campus

New for 2008-2009...

MISD transitioned to a new student records program last year (Spring 2008) and we look forward to offering new features for parents and students in the upcoming school year.

The district will no longer offer eSembler for student grades and attendance. This information and much more will soon be offered through a new parent portal system through Infinite Campus. Parents and students will be able to go to one place and find student information on grades, attendance, schedules, fees, class assignments and other pertinent information.

[update July 24, 2008] The expectation is to have the Infinite Campus portal system provide Attendance and Lesson Plans (assignments) starting on Day 1. Then, as our teachers get used to the new system and start adding in grades, parents will have access near the end of Week 2.

We realize this is a major shift for teachers, parents, and students and will require heightened levels of patience as we move forward.

[update August 18, 2008] More information is now available: Welcome to Infinite Campus blog post as well as the dedicated Infinite Campus Parent Portal Information Page.

We will also send information via the district's e-newsletter, the MISD Messenger. Do you subscribe to this free e-newsletter?