MCPS parent communication guide

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is one of the largest districts in the country, and it reaches families across several channels at once. Here's a plain guide to how MCPS communicates, and how to keep up without checking five apps.

How MCPS reaches parents

• School & district email: official notices from your school and from the district's own addresses.
• ParentSquare: school and classroom posts, plus urgent alerts.
• Canvas: assignments, grades, and teacher announcements for your student's classes.
• Remind: quick messages from individual teachers.
• Phone & text alerts: urgent notices like closures, delays, and early dismissals.

The catch: it's a lot of places

Each channel has its own app, login, and notification settings. An early-dismissal alert might come by text, a permission slip by ParentSquare, and an assignment by Canvas, all in the same busy morning. It's not that MCPS sends too little; it's that everything arrives the same way, so the important messages get lost in the routine ones.

How to keep up with all of it

• Turn on urgent alerts by text for closures and delays.
• Set ParentSquare to a daily digest so routine posts don't drown out the urgent ones.
• Use one place that reads them all. AVVI connects to your school email and texts, recognizes MCPS's senders (ParentSquare, Canvas, Remind, and district email) and surfaces only what needs you, so nothing slips through.

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