Communicating with parents outside of the school day can be tough; unless, of course, you have a direct line to their cell phones. But not all teachers want everyone to have their cell numbers.

Remind allows you to send text messages directly to cell phones without anyone having to give out their number: The teacher sets up a “class” online and invites parents (or students) to join by giving them a code to text to a specific number. Once parents send the text, their cell number is included in that class account (hidden from the teacher). The next time the teacher wants to message that parent, student, or the whole class, they simply send the message through Remind and the recipients get it as a text message on their phones. Messages can be scheduled ahead of time, which makes it even easier to automate the process. And Remind’s Translate feature can even translate your message into one of 70 different languages.

Recipients’ phones do NOT have to be smartphones; they just need to be able to send and receive text messages. Teacher messages can come from a smartphone or the web. Recipients can also choose to receive messages via email if they can’t or prefer not to receive text messages.