Up until recently email notifications for announcements and for events and help requests only went to parents that had accepted their ChalkBird invitations. However, for any number of reasons, not all parents of kids in a class accept their invitations. Perhaps they never received the invitation because it got caught in a spam filter. Or perhaps the parent just didn't act immediately, and like so many things that come through email, they just forgot about it. That is, after all, one of the main problems The ChalkBird is here to solve though, right?
Whatever the reason, we heard from room parents that they were worried that some parents would end up being completely out of the loop with what's happening in the class. And as one parent put it, that's "not good."
So as of now, whenever you send an announcement or create either an event or help request and select "Send notification," the email that gets sent to ChalkBird parents will also go to any parents that have been invited to The ChalkBird, but have not yet accepted their invitation. The email that goes to these invited parents contains all the same information that is in the ChalkBird parents' emails. In the case of announcements, that's the full announcement text (so they'll get the important information). In the case of events, they'll see the full event details so they can keep it in their calendar even if they don't yet have access to The ChalkBird's built-in calendar. In the case of help requests, they'll see the name and description of the request. To actually contribute, they'll still need to accept their invitation and create an account. Fortunately, all email notifications to invited parents will also contain a link to the original invitation right there in the notification.
Hopefully, this great new feature will help room parents and teachers rest assured that everyone is staying in the loop.