Keep connected with SchoolMessenger
We recognize the importance keeping connected with your child’s school. All of our OCSB schools use the SchoolMessenger communication platform to send automated phone calls and emails to parents. We use this system for emergencies, attendance, school updates, newsletters, and Board-wide events. Your account is a free and easy way to keep connected.
If your child is registered in an OCSB school, then you are already set up to receive emergency and attendance messages by phone or email. However, if you would like to receive other messages such as school updates and newsletters, you must sign up to SchoolMessenger and set your notification preferences. Tell us what news you would like to receive and how you want to be notified.
There is also a free SchoolMessenger App available for both iOS and Android based phones which enables you to receive notifications of school messages. Download the App, set your notification preferences, and move the App to your phone’s home screen for easy access!
Create your SchoolMessenger account
Please note that you can create a School Messenger account from either your desktop/laptop computer or your phone, but we recommend doing your initial account set-up on a desktop computer to avoid common issues. When signing up, you must use the same email address that you provided to your child’s school at the time of registration.
The first time you log into your School Messenger account, you will be prompted to:
- enter your first and last name
- identify yourself as a guardian (parent)
- grant permission to receive non-emergency calls for each phone number associated with your account. You may choose yes or no for each number.
Set your preferences for different message types
Once you have logged into your SchoolMessenger account, you can choose how you would like to be contacted for each type of message. You can receive messages by phone, email, or both! Open SchoolMessenger’s Preferences section and select the contact information to be used for each message type.
If the icon is green, that means you have said yes to that type of notification. Please note that at least one phone number is required for emergency and attendance messages.
You can change your contact preferences at any time. All messages sent by the school will also be available for you to access in the message centre of your SchoolMessenger account for 30 days after they are sent.
- Emergency: Emergency notifications requiring your urgent attention will be sent by both phone and email. Other important notifications may only be sent by email because of their complexity.
- Attendance: Automated attendance messages are always sent by both phone and email whenever a student is unexpectedly absent.
- Email Translation: Schools may choose to send emails in multiple languages. When they do, parents whose child’s first language is not English and who have this preference set to yes will receive both an English email and an email in their child’s first language.
- General: General messages will include school and school board newsletters, important messages, and notices of cancellation to services and events. These messages may also include information of a commercial nature such as yearbook sales, field trips, milk and pizza sales, student photos and fundraisers.
- Teacher to Parent Messaging: Teachers may choose to send messages to the parents of students in their class.
- School to Student Messaging: Messages sent by teachers or schools to their students at the students’ @ocsbstudent email accounts.
Add a child to your SchoolMessenger account
If you have already created a SchoolMessenger account for another child attending an OCSB school, then you do not need to create a new account. To add another child to an existing account, you must synchronize your account so that it has the most up-to-date contact information. You can do this either on a computer or within the app on your phone.
To sync your account within the app on your mobile device
- open the SchoolMessenger app
- click the menu icon and select Contacts
- tap the SEARCH FOR CONTACTS BY PHONE link at the bottom of the screen to allow you to find additional contacts (i.e. your other children) by using your phone number
- tap the Refresh icon located in the upper righthand corner of the screen to upload the most up-to-date information
To sync your account on a computer:
- go to go.schoolmessenger.ca and log into your account
- click the menu icon and select Contacts
- click the “Is someone still missing” link at the bottom of the screen to allow you to find additional contacts (i.e. your other children) by using your phone number
- click the “Synchronize contacts with your school district” link at the top of the Contacts page to upload the most up-to-date information
once the sync is complete, you’ll receive a “Synchronization Complete” message - click OK to return to the Contacts page
Change your contact information
To change or add to any of your contact information, please contact your child’s school directly. View our school directory for their phone and email contacts.
Help with creating your account
If you are having difficulty creating your SchoolMessenger account, please email School.Messenger@ocsb.ca.