Rock Hill school district developing app

The Rock Hill school district is developing an app for mobile devices that will allow users to pick news feeds, calendar information and photos and videos from more than 175 school sources.

District officials hope to roll out the app before Christmas.

“This is our community Christmas present,” Mychal Frost, director of communications for the school district, said Monday. “This is a place where our educational community will come together.”

The app is being developed as no cost to the school system, Frost said. The school district already has a $35,000 contract with Blackboard for a mass notification phone service. Blackboard is developing the app as part of that contract, Frost said.

Had it been a separate contract the app would have likely cost the school district about $10,000, Frost said.

The app will allow each user to personalize the information. The 175 feeds include information from schools, booster clubs, parent organizations and student activities.

The district also is working on a feature that will allow app users to combine various school calendars into their own personal calendar, a great tool for parents with children at multiple schools.

Another feature will allow users to translate content into one of 60 languages.

The app will have a “push” notification allowing the district and the schools to send out specific messages to all app users. Frost, the former communications director for the Clover school district, said he used that app function last year to inform all Clover students, parents and app users that the girls softball team had won the state title.

The app is part of the district’s new communications strategy. Rock Hill school district officials want to leverage their social media presence and also use it for two-way communications.

A recent social media audit of Rock Hill schools shows some schools actively update their web pages and Facebook accounts, while other schools have not posted any new information on the websites since April 21, Frost said.

One of the district’s goals is to train staff to be more effective with the social media tools they have, Frost said.

This story was originally published September 14, 2015 at 10:49 PM with the headline "Rock Hill school district developing app."