Smore Newsletters Are Now Available in SchoolStatus Connect

Keeping families in the loop is a critical part of building trust and engagement in your school community. But how do you cut through the digital noise—and avoid winding up crumpled at the bottom of a backpack? Smore newsletters deliver interactive, fun, and informative updates in bite-sized pieces. In fact, Smore is already used by over 70% of schools in the U.S. 

And now, educators’ favorite newsletter builder is available in SchoolStatus Connect! You can send customized, translatable newsletters, as well as SMS, texts, emails, and calls from a single platform.

Let’s dive in!

Creating Your First Newsletter

Getting started with Newsletters by Smore is simple. From the SchoolStatus Connect homepage, open the + Menu on the top right corner of the screen. From the drop-down, select “Newsletter by Smore.” This will take you to the main Smore screen.

Select “Start a Newsletter” or select a previously created newsletter to make edits or duplicate. You can organize your newsletter drafts into folders, which is especially helpful when managing newsletters for multiple classes or grade levels.

Customize from a Template

Smore newsletters offer hundreds of education-specific templates, like Weekly Updates, Meet the Teacher, Event Invitations, and Holiday Themes. You can customize as much or as little of the design and content as you want. Templates help speed up the process, prompt creative ways to engage your readers, and make important information easy to find.

The Weekly Update is a great template for classroom or school updates, district check-ins, and recurring progress reports. Let’s use that one.

Once you’ve selected a template, you can easily update text or images, rearrange the content, and add or delete sections. Just hover over a section and click Edit. You can also select widgets from the menu on the right to add polls, gifs, videos, forms, attachments, and more.

Here are some design tips to consider as you build your newsletter.

• Give each section a title. Doing this will create an automatic table of contents, so your readers can see what the newsletter is about—at a glance
• Don’t like the order of your template? Click and drag any section to rearrange it
• And be sure to update your footer! Adding a personalized sign-off builds trust and recognition with families and helps you stand out from all the impersonal emails they receive

When you’re finished building your first newsletter, give it a quick read-through and click “Done” on each section. Then hit “Preview and Share.” Don’t worry, it won’t publish your newsletter right away—you’ll have time to review and make any changes you need.

Smore newsletters can be easily shared with anyone in your district through SchoolStatus Connect. Simply select the audience you want to receive your newsletter and click “Share Announcement” to send via email or publish directly in your classroom feed. Your audience will get the information they need, in their preferred format.

And that’s it!

We’re excited to give all of our SchoolStatus Connect users another way to connect with families and the broader school community—all from one platform. Whether you want to start building newsletters for the first time or have questions about upgrading your current Smore account, connect with us for a free demo. See for yourself how SchoolStatus + Smore can support student success in your district.