County schools release app for smartphones

Published 6:54 pm Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Butler County Schools can say there’s an app for that after the system launched its app for smartphones last week.

The school system launched the app in an effort to keep everybody informed and to stay in contact with students, teachers and parents, BCSS technology director Matthew Shell said.

“Nowadays, pretty much everybody has a phone with them,” Shell said. “We do a mobile version of the website. This is just a natural extension of having an app that feeds all of the Butler County School System information into that app experience with notification access.”

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Shell also said it’s one more way to get the word out.

The app was provided as a part of the system’s School Messenger contract.

Shell said the app is a great tool to alert students, parents and employees about important events, weather delays, etc.

The app is available in the Apple App Store for iPhones and the Google App Store for Android phones.

Once downloaded, the user will see a screen pop up with seight different buttons, which are for basic news, calendar, athletics, the system’s Facebook page, theschools list, board of education members, lunch menus and instant information.

Shell said the app allows for parents who have children in different schools to pick and choose their school calendars to view.

One of the best features with the app ties into the school’s rapid messenger system, Shell said.

“Any users will get notifications through that app,” he said.

Search for “Butler County Schools” in the app stores. The app is free to download.

The launching of the new app comes at a good time because it is one of the system’s objectives from the strategic plan.

The launch page for the app is http://launch.customschoolapp.net/butlercs/. Click the green download button for iPhone users, and the Google icon for Android users.