Portsmouth Schools -  Staying in Touch

Between Central Office and the schools across the Portsmouth School District we know frequent and clear communications with families, students and staff are essential for any high functioning school system, so we’re continuously working to improve our outreach. We would like to take a moment to share just a few of our communications tools to ensure everyone can follow the moves of our bustling district.

The School Department website, along with all city department websites, received a significant upgrade recently. Aside from the improved interface, the content management system behind the new site will allow us to provide more frequent updates and real time announcements. The website is a great spot to follow our school and district calendars. Whether you’re visiting Portsmouth Middle Schools’ Clippers Bridge, catching up on PHS news via the PHS PaperClip or Morning Announcements, weather delays or cancellations, or just trying to figure out when Picture Retake Day is again, our enhanced online presence should be able to oblige.  

The district uses Blackboard Connect and Infinite Campus Messenger for school and district-wide messaging for emergency communications and basic outreach.  It’s important to make sure your contact information is up to date in our student information system Infinite Campus (IC), because Blackboard Connect pulls from the contacts in IC to generate its’ mailing and call lists. Make sure your child’s school office has current information on how best to reach you and we’ll do our best not to wake up your emergency contact uncle with a two-hour delay call at 5 AM in February.

Each school, and many school PTO/PTA’s and booster groups publish regular newsletters. The Portsmouth School District also sends out a dispatch with news, important upcoming dates and opportunities for students. If you’re not receiving the district newsletter and would like to, please subscribe at Portsmouth School District Newsletter.

The Portsmouth School District App is another great tool for quick access to school calendars, lunch menus and contact information. App users can also elect to receive push notifications on their devices for urgent messages from Portsmouth Schools. The app is available to download free on your smartphone or tablet or you can scan the following QR codes and download from iTunes or Google Play.

     QR Code for Android             QR Code for iPhone                  QR Code for iPad

In the realm of social media, you can follow Portsmouth Schools on Twitter @portsschools or on Facebook under Portsmouth School Department. Many of our schools, departments and teachers have Twitter feeds that not only showcase the amazing work and experiences of Portsmouth students, but also follow current topics in education. At risk of making Instagram decidedly less cool for our students, we’ll be adding it to our social media mix soon.

On a final note, this year staff emails have changed to @sau52.org (e.g., gshea@sau52.org), however we have email forwarding set up from all of the old @portsmouth.k12.nh.us addresses, which will continue for the rest of this school year. No matter which address you use, your message will get to the right place.  

We will continue to reach out to our school communities to articulate and celebrate the many goings-on in Portsmouth Schools, but appreciate any feedback on ways we can improve our lines of communication.