ParentSquare & StudentSquare

You don’t have to take any action to receive emails, texts, or phone calls, but when you activate your ParentSquare account by creating a password, you will open up many additional opportunities.

Our student information system syncs contact information directly with ParentSquare, so once you are logged in, you will have access to news and announcements from your student’s school(s) and will have all this information located together. If you want to utilize the ParentSquare mobile app, simply download it from the app store and follow the prompts. If you do not activate your account by logging in to the website, you will still receive emails, texts, or phone calls from the school and district.

There are three different ways to activate or register your ParentSquare account so you can log in to the website. View our reference guide for details on each method or download the Getting Started - English or Getting Started - Spanish PDF guides for tips.

Please update your contact information in ParentVUE or contact your student’s school so they can assist.

Yes. The first time that you log into the app or web portal, all of your students should automatically be listed in the upper lefthand corner. If you don’t see them, please contact your school office(s).

Your school(s) and the District will send you information using these three methods, described below. When you log into ParentSquare, you can view all the information you have received in these three methods rather than searching your inbox.

Posts: Information the school wants you to know, but it does not need to immediately be received will be sent through the Posts portion of the platform. Examples include the school newsletter or a reminder about an upcoming event at the school. Posts are typically compiled into one email sent each evening, unless you change your notification settings to receive them instantly (see the question "Is it possible to change how frequently I receive notifications from ParentSquare?" below for details). Posts will arrive in the recipient's preferred language. You can "appreciate" these posts or comment on them. When you comment on a post, only the school/district staff who created the post will see your comment. Parents cannot view other parents' comments.

Alerts and Notifications: Important information the school wants to notify you about quickly will be sent through the Alerts and Notifications portion of the platform. These may come through as emails, text messages, and/or voicemails. You cannot reply directly to Alerts and Notifications. Alerts and Notifications will be sent in the recipient's preferred language. This feature will be used to send information the school wants you to be aware of right away, including school bus delays, inclement weather, and more.

Messages: District/school staff can communicate directly with parents individually or in small groups through the messages portion of the platform. Message recipients will receive an email or app notification when they receive a message. To reply, they will need to log into ParentSquare or use the app. Parents cannot message other parents in ParentSquare. The message will be received in the recipient's preferred language. Please note: Not all Northshore teachers and staff are fully utilizing ParentSquare, so please communicate with your students' teachers in the platform of their preference.

Please check your spam to see if any ParentSquare messages ended up there and mark them as "Not Spam." Also add donotreply@parentsquare.com to your email contacts so your server recognizes our messages.

If you still aren’t receiving emails, please complete a Technology Help Desk request form.

Please go to www.parentsquare.com and on the login page, click "Forgot Password." Put in your email or phone number, and you’ll be sent a link to reset your password.

If you wish to change your contact information, please contact your school or update the information through ParentVUE. ParentVUE syncs nightly with ParentSquare to update information.

Northshore students and families speak more than 100 languages and dialects. When a student is first enrolled in Northshore, parents are asked to indicate what language they (parents) prefer to receive communication in. This preference is recorded in Synergy, the District's student information system. When ParentSquare initially synced data from Synergy, the communication preference data was transferred. If a parent is receiving communication in a language other than English, it is because they indicated that language either when first enrolling their child or during the annual review process in the Fall. During the Fall, parents are asked to review and confirm a number of data - including communication preference though ParentVue, the parent portal for Synergy.

If a parent is receiving communication in a language they don't want, there are two options to make a change:

Making a Change Through ParentSquare

From a web browser:

• Log into ParentSquare
• Click on their name in the top right corner
• Click on My Account from the dropdown menu
• Click on "Language Preferences" in the left margin
• Select your preferred language from the dropdown menu
• Click Save

From the app:

• Open the ParentSquare App
• Tap on the 3 horizontal lines at the top of the home page
• Tap "My Account"
• Tap "Preferences"
• Tap "Language"
• Select your preferred language

This action WILL NOT change your language preference in Synergy.

Making a Change Through ParentVue

An adjustment to the communication preference in Synergy, the student information system, via ParentVue is only recommended if you want all District communications to be received in the new language. This change can be made by the parent during the Fall until mid-October. After mid-October, parents will need to ask the main office staff at your child's school to change your communication preference in the system (Synergy).

Additional details:

• If a parent updates their language preference in Synergy, their language preference will be updated in ParentSquare as long as they haven’t already made a language change via the communication tool. ParentSquare language changes are protected.
• If a parent has already updated their language preference in ParentSquare and then updates their language in Synergy, the nightly sync will not override the parent's language preference that they selected in ParentSquare.

Here is a help article on how to change your language settings.

Professionally, human-translated content is always the best, however it is very expensive and not fully funded by the state. As of October 2022, the District was required to bring our practices into alignment with new language access legislation. We are now required to provide written, human translation of vital documents for languages that constitute at least five percent of the District’s total parent or guardian population or 1,000 persons, whichever is less. The types of vital documents that require human translation can be viewed in the new Language Access Policy. In Northshore this is only Spanish even though more than 100 languages and dialects are spoken. We have and continue to look for ways to make language accessible. While machine translation (e.g., Google translate) is not perfect - it is a step forward compared to no translated communication. Many of our families weren't receiving any translated content - machine or human - until the adoption of ParentSquare. Additionally, ParentSquare, unlike our past communication tool (Blackboard), supports the integration of professionally, pre-translated content. We are in the process of ensuring all of our emergency communication templates are human-translated, accurate, and preloaded into the communication system, ParentSquare,  to ensure timely family communication if needed.

Additionally, we are discussing bringing together families to help us simplify typically used education language and determine ways to help improve the accuracy of machine-translated content. If you are interested in supporting these efforts, please let us know: communications@nsd.org.

By default, families are receiving email and text notifications in a "digest" format each evening messages are sent. This means you will receive one email and/or text with the posts or messages from that day for each school your student(s) attend.

If you want to receive information instantly when published by the school or district, you can change your notification settings. Customize these settings by logging into your ParentSquare account, clicking on your name in the top right corner, and selecting "My Account" from the drop-down menu. On your account page, click “Notification Settings” in the left side navigation to customize your notifications. If you want to receive the notifications immediately, change to "instant" for emails, texts, or the app. Here is a help article on changing your notification settings.

Please note: While you can opt out of any of these methods of communication, the District has the discretion to override opt-outs for messages and alerts deemed urgent or important, including health and safety situations and attendance. 

It is possible to contact your child's teacher privately by using the direct messaging tool if they are utilizing ParentSquare. This is not a requirement for teachers to use, so please use whatever communication tool your classroom teachers have indicated they prefer.

If they are using ParentSquare, once you are logged in, click on "Messaging" in the left sidebar. From there, you can send a direct message to your child's teacher that only you and the teacher can see. You also can send messages to other staff members at the school, such as your child's principal. You can send these messages in your preferred language; the messages will arrive to staff in English. Here is a link to our help page on direct messaging.

StudentSquare is the version of ParentSquare specifically for students in our middle and high schools. This allows schools and the District to include middle and high school students as recipients of messages. Notifications are sent only to the student's district-issued email address.

Notifications to middle and high school students will be sent to student's district-issued email addresses. Any students who have also downloaded the StudentSquare app can also receive push notifications through the app. Since the District has not collected student phone numbers, text messaging to students is currently unavailable. The app notification is the most immediate way for students to be notified of news and important schedule changes at their school.

ParentSquare is the preferred method for sharing news and information with families. Direct email and ParentVUE may also be utilized by teachers, but district and school-level information will be sent through ParentSquare moving forward. This replaces a system called Blackboard, which families did not log into. Families only received one-way information from Northshore using Blackboard, and the contract with Blackboard is expiring soon. ParentSquare is being implemented in January 2023 to allow for transition time for staff.

ParentVUE is the web version for families of Synergy, our district’s student information system. It is where you can log in to find information on attendance, class schedules, report cards, course history, graduation status, and more.

Schoology is the District’s main learning management system (grades 4-12), where you will find information about assignments. Seesaw is the learning management system used for Pre-K - grade 5.

Touchbase is the District platform for accepting all payments from families except meal balances. Families can make payments to the District through Touchbase for items like program fees, student fines, ASB, and more.

Titan is the Food and Nutrition Services platform for managing student meal balances. Due to USDA federal requirements that oversee school nutrition programs, Touchbase cannot be utilized to collect school meal payments, and Titan is in place instead.