Aldine ISD Utilizes TalkingPoints For Classrooms and Families

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For the 2022-2023 school year, Aldine ISD’s Family and Community Engagement (FACE) Department has implemented TalkingPoints at 30 schools in the district, ranging from early learning to high schools, with the goal of allowing teachers to easily communicate with parents at home in their preferred language.

TalkingPoints is a two-way multilingual platform that FACE has made available through the use of ESSER funds. 46 languages are spoken at home within the AISD families, so TalkingPoints’ ability to translate in more than 100 languages provides a much needed  resource for the communities of the district.

To begin, teachers input their original message and TalkingPoints then translates it into the parent’s language of choice. The translation works in both ways, in that once the parents respond in their preferred language, TalkingPoints translates the response back to English. This system is what allows the teachers and parents to freely continue the conversation.

“Our goal is to help establish effective lines of communication between schools and families,” said Executive Director of Family and Community Engagement, Dr. Martha Escalante. “That is why we chose to use TalkingPoints, it covers many languages, and it lets teachers easily communicate with families through texting.”

This initiative is benefitting more than 20,000 students within the district, and with the function being done via text messaging, any parent with a simple mobile phone is able to access and utilize the program. While the ‘22-’23 school year was the first year the program was implemented, FACE already has plans to continue use of the program for the ‘23-’24 school year as well.

To keep track of the various programs and initiatives FACE currently has within the district, click here.