Good day, NDHS families –

I write today to address an area of frustration for both our families and for us here at NDHS – EMAILS.

I seem to be constantly trying to find an effective way to address communicating with families – both the level which is appropriate and the means of disseminating information. Last year, I sent all of my communications via my ND email account (through Google). We found this to have many unwanted side-effects. Very often, because of the large number of parents who were bcc’d on these emails, many incoming servers assumed they were spam and filed them accordingly. This year, I decided to communicate via the “One Call” system. As we had last year with Gmail, we are finding there are several kinks with this system – some of which we don’t even know about until we receive emails from families who are not receiving anything from us. One Call also gathers information from our student management system, which I find, in general, to be antiquated, at best. Currently, I am considering moving us to something along the lines of Constant Contact, or the like. I am also in the market for a new SIS (student information system).
Mr. Fiedler, our technology director has been looking into why some parents are not receiving emails, and others are. We think it’s because the SIS only imports the information for the “primary parent.”
While none of these are excuses for your not receiving our emails, I hope it sheds a little light on why. As I get into my second year here at NDHS, I continue to search for the best and most effective ways to communicate with our families, while ensuring that my messages are getting to the appropriate people.

I have been in contact with our website company. In the coming days they will be adding a new tab to the website under the parent section – it will labeled “Emails/Announcements”. Each time I send home an email to families, we will post it to this section of the website. This way, in the interim, parents can always check there to ensure they are not missing anything.
Thank you again, and please know we are working on a permanent solution to this ongoing issue.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Peace and good,
Mr. D’Angelo