Beaufort County Schools overhauls website and adds free app to communications strategies

 From Beaufort County Schools

Beaufort County Schools is beginning the 2015-2016 school year with two new tools designed to enhance communication.

“We launched our new website in July,” explained Dr. Don Phipps, superintendent of Beaufort County Schools. “The newly designed site is very user friendly and we will continue to make adjustments to best serve the end users, our students, parents and the community.”

Teachers will be utilizing classroom pages to keep parents and guardians informed with activities at the school level.

“We are striving to make all resources available to our families in a simple, easy to use manner,” Phipps said.

Sarah Hodges, public information officer, explained the second tool launching for this school year.

“Our parents and guardians are busier than ever. We recognized it was time to upgrade our communications efforts to best reach our student families. With that in mind, we are excited to launch the Beaufort County Schools phone app, now available in the iTunes Store or Google Play,” Hodges said.

The app — which is a free download — allows the user to select which schools they want to follow, including the BCS district page.

“Announcements will feed to the app from the school or district website,” Hodges said. “We will also send emergency announcements out via the app.”

“We are very aware that a number of our homes do not have Internet access and/or a computer, “Phipps said. “However, we know from surveying our parents that many do have cell phone access that do not have a home computer.”

Beaufort County Schools remains committed to improving school-to-home communication and will regularly address the needs of our parents and guardians.