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APS School Talk

School Talk logoArlington Public Schools keeps in touch with parents and the community through our email, voicemail and text messaging system, APS School Talk.

Starting in August 2023, APS is switching to the ParentSquare platform for all School Talk communications with families, staff and the community. ParentSquare also provides 2-way direct communication between teachers and parents/guardians (replacing Talking Points and other services like Remind and Class Dojo).

Click here to learn more about ParentSquare.

The following information pertains to our old system, School Messenger. School Messenger will be discontinued at the end of August, 2023. All user data will be deleted from the School Messenger service after that date.

PARENTS/GUARDIANS:

Parents/Guardians are automatically signed up for School Talk when you register your student for school (as of July 1 in the school year for which they are registered).

Email & Voicemails: Automatically enrolled based on information provided during registration. Be sure to provide your email and phone number(s). You can use ParentVUE to confirm that your contact information is correct. (Get more information about ParentVUE here.)

Text Messages: Receiving text messages is an easy 2-step process. Both steps must be complete for you to receive text messages.

  1. Make sure that your mobile phone number is in the school’s database (contact the school, or check ParentVUE) AS a mobile number. It can also be your home/work number, but it must also be entered separately as a Mobile or Cell.
  2. Once that gets imported to School Talk, you will receive a confirmation text message. You MUST reply “Y” or “YES” to this initial text to opt in. If you miss that initial text, you can still opt in at any time by texting “Y” or “Yes” to our school’s short code number, 67587.

**If you do not get the confirmation text, or get an error message when you try to text to 67587, you may need to contact your service provider to make sure that you have the option to send/receive to short codes. This is usually just a setting on your data plan.
You can also opt out of text messages at any time by simply replying to one of our messages with “Stop”.

Parents/Guardians may create a SchoolMessenger account to set their preferences for receiving School Talk messages to different devices or email addresses. To set up an account, visit go.schoolmessenger.com and click on Sign Up in the upper right corner. (Directions on setting up an account)

COMMUNITY MEMBERS:

If you are not a parent/guardian of an APS student, but would still like to receive information about APS, neighborhood schools and various programs, you can sign up for APS School Talk by visiting the School Messenger Subscriber site (https://asp.schoolmessenger.com/apsva/subscriber/). You will be able to create an account for yourself and subscribe to the district and to whatever schools you choose. (Directions on setting up an account)

Note: Once you’ve created a Community Member account for yourself, you must sign into it at least once a year to keep it active.

STAFF:

Staff will automatically receive email messages. If you would like to receive text messages, please log into STARS and, under Personal Information, enter your mobile number as type MOBILE (and/or home number for voicemail messages, as type HOME). Within 24 you will receive a confirmation text and you MUST reply YES to that text to opt in.
For personal cell phone numbers (not provided by APS): **If you do not get the confirmation text, or get an error message when you try to text to 67587, you may need to contact your service provider to make sure that you have the option to send/receive to short codes. This is usually just a setting on your data plan.

If you need to receive information from a school you are not associated with either as a staff or parent, follow the instructions above to create a Community Member account and subscribe to those additional schools.

SchoolMessenger is compliant with the Student Privacy Pledge, so you can rest assured that your information is safe and will never be given or sold to anyone.

Don’t forget to add APSSchoolTalk@apsva.us to your trusted list in your email address book!