Overview:
The official Matanuska-Sustina Borough School District app gives parents, students, staff and community a personalized window into what is happening at the district and schools. Get news and information that you care about and get involved.
Download and set up the Mobile App
Apple Store and GooglePlay links and instructions
- Download the app on your device from:
- When you open the app it will prompt you to choose your schools from the list. This will subscribe you to the schools calendars, feeds and notifications. You can change the schools you subscribe to as your students move around.
- When you see a gear at the top right use it to customize what sites' info you want to populate that page.
- Notifications are Blackboard messages sent from the District or Schools. You will see a purple icon with red numbers indicating unread messages. You can adjust your phone notification settings so MSBSD app will show push notifications.
Using the Mobile App
Take a look at the different elements of the app
- Top Stories
- These feed from multiple sources (Facebook, Twitter, School Webpage Headlines) for each school you are subscribed to. They will change as new posts are added to those sources, as it shows the 5 most recent stories.
- Click on the story to see more; you'll then see what school/source the story originated from and see a link to view it in the native app.
- MSBSD News
- This is a more comprehensive list of news, also from multiple sources (FB, Twitter, Headlines, Calendars, Blackboard Messages) for each school you are subscribed to. See the source under the title of the article and share the article if it is shareable.
- Events Calendar
- This will feed events from all calendars you subscribe to. Click on an event to see date/time, description and add the event to your device calendar.
- All schools have a calendar that feeds from their website named after their school. Many High Schools and Middle Schools will also have an Arbiter calendar for their sports & activities. Remember the gear allows you to choose which you want.
- In the Setup Events Calendar screen you can customize the color associated with each calendar. Change the PHS calendar to blue, WHS to red, etc.
- At the bottom you can skip directly to todays events, and choose between List & Month view.
- The globe icon opens "Other Calendars" that may not feed in. They generally link to a website, such as the District School Year calendars or the HS ArbiterLive sites. Use the change button at the top right to see your choices, and use the calendar icon at the bottom right to go back to the calendar feed.
- Staff, Parent & Student log in
- You will automatically be following the district and any schools your are connected to. You can choose others as well.
- Once logged in you may see additional notifications that were not sent to the general public.
- Staff/Students will see an icon or picture with their name. Parents will see themself and their students. Click to edit Delivery Preferences
- Click on a student to see info on classes, attendance and more.
- Directory
- This is an employee directory for each school. You'll see the schools you've subscribed to at the top.
- Use the search field to find a name directly. Click on the staff name to open an email, see their class list and Add to Contacts easily. The teacher may have also added a bio and link to their website. See Dr. Trani's record as an example.
- To add your bio and website to your record: Log into Blackboard, open your account by clicking "Account" at the top right corner, then fill out the bio and website fields on the Directory tab.
- Navigate to a school to see their contact, website and staffing information. Phone, website and address are linked shortcuts so you can easily open a call, visit the website or open Google maps to the address.
- Tip Line
- Tip Line allows users to send Tips, Bullying reports and other feedback to a school. These can be anonymous or include contact info from the reporter
- Tip Line is available from the mobile app, from the District Homepage or from https://www.matsuk12.us/tipline.
- If the user is reporting from the mobile app they can include a picture.
- Blackboard School Admins can edit the notification emails/sms numbers in Settings> Organization Config> Tip Line
- In that same location is Widget code to embed on your school's website.
- Links
- These links simply open the corresponding webpages and you'll log into them with your username and password.
- ParentVUE
- StudentVUE
- Closures
- Employment Opportunities
- School Cafe
- Where's My Bus
- School Supply lists
- Parent QL
- Student QL
- Community QL
- Employee QL
- Livestream
- HELP
- Settings
- Follow Schools allows you to change the schools you subscribe to
- Configure your alerts and Edit your Blackboard Message Delivery Preferences
- Select language
- Log out (If you are logged out you will not get push notifications or messages that the school sends directly to you)
- Share this app
- Reset app defaults
Mobile App Push Notifications from Blackboard Mass Messaging
Send Blackboard messages to the Mobile App so parents/staff get instant notifications
Many email providers will queue mass emails and not immediately deliver them. Some carriers require customers to opt in to toll free SMS messaging. This makes it troublesome when you are trying to get emergency information to your parents. By including the mobile app as a delivery mode parents who are using it will get immediate notifications.
- In the Messages> Send Interface of Blackboard create your message and choose the App icon (it will turn purple) at the bottom.
- Create content for the app. Use what is in the Template box, or you can copy from another delivery type by using the copy button at bottom right.
- You can include an attachment
- Recipients only checkbox:
- Unchecked means that anyone subscribed to your school will get the message. This would be appropriate for public messages such as snow days, upcoming events, etc. You can send a message using only the Mobile App delivery mode and unchecked recipients only. This would be appropriate for a public announcement.
- Checked means that only those in the recipients list will get the message and notification. Targeted, confidential messages and info should be checked.
Recipients will see a number on the Notifications icon. Click to see the list of previous messages. Click on the message to see the complete message.
