Using Remind for Urgent Situations

When your community’s safety and well-being are at stake, timely communication is key. Whether you’re responding to unexpected events or monitoring ongoing situations, you can use Remind to make sure that students and parents in your classes have access to the information they need.

With this in mind, here’s how you can set up Remind Chat to prepare for urgent situations.

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1. Make sure your class includes everyone you need to reach.

A free Remind account lets you create up to 10 classes with up to 150 people each, so assess your classes and create any that you might need in an urgent situation. In most cases, it’s more convenient to use the classes you already have.

You can see who’s in each class by navigating to your people list. Check class participants against your roster: If there’s anyone missing, add them to Remind.

• Add people to your class

[.c-grey-box]TIP: If your class includes ELL families, you can translate your messages before sending.[.c-grey-box]

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2. Familiarize yourself with two-way messaging.

Two-way messaging lets you communicate directly with students and families to answer questions, coordinate logistics, and handle individual situations.

If you don’t already have replies enabled for your messages on Remind, take a minute to see where to turn them on (and off).

• Enable replies to your messages

When two-way messaging is enabled, make sure your class knows that they can reply to your messages by text, by app, and online.

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3. Prepare important documents and resources so you have them handy.

Along with updates, you can use Remind to share documents like guidelines, response plans, and maps with your students and parents.

If you use Google Drive, Google Classroom, or Microsoft OneDrive, you can connect them to Remind to access your files from the composer. Make sure you have critical documents uploaded to your accounts so they’re ready to go.

• Connect your accounts

To share printed handouts or other documents that you might not have access to in advance, you can also take a photo or screenshot and attach it to a message.

• Share photos and other files

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Together, these steps should take about an hour to complete. In urgent situations, leverage familiar communication channels to help your class stay in the loop—and stay as safe as possible.

Questions about how to use Remind? Get in touch with our Support team here.