The School Principal Blog

Software is increasingly changing the way we perceive common tools of everyday life such as books and calendars. Before a computer became common in every home and classroom, we were accustomed to paper based systems for activities such as reading or finding out what events are happening at school. Just as the Kindle for the iPod has altered the book industry by enabling almost instant access to millions of books, school calendar software has transformed the way school administrators, teachers, students, and parents interact with the school calendar. And like other tools in society that have been replaced by software, school calendar software has many advantages.

Eliminate paper-based systems
Paper based calendars are not very efficient by today’s standards. Traditionally school districts may have sent out a paper annual calendar to all students families. These calendars would be pretty empty except for school holidays. Many schools would also send out a monthly newsletter or flier home with students that described upcoming events. This would often require hundreds or thousands of pages of paper to be printed out, and often the information was out of date as soon as it was received. School calendar software allows schools to publish events to an online calendar that is instantly accessible to everyone who goes to the calendar’s web page on their internet browser. This can also save lots of paper and ink.

Increased event awareness
Another advantage of school calendar software is that it can raise awareness of what is going on at the school. While a paper calendar that you stick to your fridge can be a reference for what events are happening at the school, a calendar that sits on a web page can be far more informative. An online school calendar can show every event that is going on at the school with detailed information about the place, time, directions, contacts, etc. Instead of a sheet of paper that can be lost in transit or misplaced, online school calendars are always accessible from anywhere you have access to the internet. Students and parents always know where to go to find out what is happening at the school, which encourages school participation.

Improved School Facilities Management Process
Before school calendar software solutions, managing and scheduling use of school facilities could be a major project. The school administrator may have to account for a large number of school groups and scheduling conflicts could be common. Requesting use of a facility could take days or weeks, with the back and forth phone tag or email tag. School calendar software makes this facilities management easy with automatic conflict detection, and a simple and streamlined facilities request and approval process.

Real Time Information Updates
If there is a change in the time of an event, or a school cancellation due to inclement weather, school calendar software can display this change on the main calendar almost instantly after a school administrator makes the change. In contrast a paper calendar takes a very long time to update and is useless for school cancellations or same day changes. Being able to check the status of an event or school cancellation online is very convenient to parents and can prevent lots of phone calls to the office. With some online school calendars like Tandem for Schools, parents can also sign up for automatic email updates when the status changes for an event.

Schoolcal.org is a site for parents that does a good job at describing the benefits for parents of a good internet school calendar. It also answers frequently asked questions about internet school calendars and how they can help parents. Parents who want to show support for schools using an internet-based calendar can add their name to a list of parents to show interest to schools and encourage them to consider implementing an online school calendar. From the website:

Parents and schools both benefit when everyone uses an Internet calendar. You’ll love being able to:

• Add each child’s Internet school calendar to your personal digital calendar—Cozi, Google, Yahoo, iCal, Microsoft Outlook, or any digital calendar that supports the iCalendar standard.

• Receive any schedule changes or school closures automatically.

• Access the school calendar whenever and wherever you need it.

• Plan vacations, after-school activities, and appointments more easily.

• Save time and eliminate accidental double bookings on your calendar.

A good school calendar can be a great resource for parents, who like and need to have information about what is going on at the school. School calendars like Tandem can immediately update parents with important school information like snow closures or an event rescheduling using the power of the internet. Parents can either go to the calendar page on the internet or have the school calendar sync with many calendar programs that parents may already have such as Outlook, iCal, Google Calendar, or Cozi. This can make school parent communication more effective and less stressful for both sides.

Without a central information hub like a school calendar, finding important school information can be frustrating for parents who may have to call the school or just find out when they get there. With a good school calendar, parents can know exactly where to look to find out key dates or schedule changes.

For time sensitive information like a snow closure or a baseball game rainout, the need to spread information quickly is important. A good school calendar will allow administration to quickly and easily update the calendar so everyone that is affected can get the message.

Tandem for Schools is school administration calendar software designed to make the job of administration easier while improving communication with students and parents. What sets Tandem for Schools apart from other calendar options is the elegant design, ease of use, and time saving features. Not only will it make school calendar management way easier for staff, it will make parents happy because they can easily access the calendar of extracurricular events with real time updates, from any internet connection.

This is the greatest communication tool we have on campus. It saves me hours a week. The program itself is easy to use and the information is instantly available to our community. What more could you ask for?” - Vicki Storey - Library Teacher Santa Ynez Valley Union High School, California

Two full time people were managing our calendars. Now there is only one person. Tandem for Schools has made the process fast, easy and powerful.” - Teri Turner - Database Administrator Fremont County School District, Wyoming

These school administrators have found Tandem for School to be a tool that has made their job easier by cutting hours of time from their workload. Posting events on the Tandem calendar is very quick and it automatically checks for any schedule conflicts. It is also super easy to implement because the calendar is hosted on Tandem’s secure servers. It can take minutes to get up and running and integrating Tandem with your website is as simple as adding a link to yourschool.intand.com.

To learn more sign up for a free one on one demo on your computer via go2meeting, or try Tandem for Schools free for 30 days.

A free online calendar is offered by Intand and is called Tandem Basic, which allows an administrator to enter all events for an entire year on an online annual calendar. The calendar can be publicly accessed online to view or print. The calendar information can also be exported to Outlook, iCal, Cozy, and Google Calendar. Another added feature of Tandem Basic is an RSS feed that parents, students, or faculty can subscribe to with an RSS feed reader such as MyYahoo or Google Reader. The calendar is hosted at Intand.com so you can create a link to the calendar page or embed the calendar on the school website. You can also upload the school’s logo and customize the colors of the calendar.

The free online calendar is available now and requires only a user registration.