When every family needs to receive a critical message quickly, clearly, and in a way they understand, nothing can be left to chance. Fragmented tools, language barriers, and inconsistent messaging often get in the way. District Emergency Alerts & Broadcast Notifications expands TalkingPoints into a unified, multi-channel communications solution that helps schools and districts overcome these challenges.

With just one button, leaders can send urgent alerts via short code SMS text, email, app notifications, and automated phone calls. Messages are delivered with industry-leading translation in 150+ languages, while TalkingPoints’ text-first model ensures maximum reach for every critical message. Flexible broadcast notifications respect families’ communication preferences while ensuring fast and comprehensive outreach across text, app, email, and calls for your entire district.

One button web and social media posting allows your communication to reach more people instantly. By consolidating communication tools into one trusted platform, schools and districts can deliver critical information at scale—when the message matters most.

District Emergency Alerts and Broadcast Notifications is an add-on package to TalkingPoints Foundations. It takes advantage of TalkingPoints’ industry-leading translation and messaging capabilities, unifying all communications together in one platform from classroom to school to district. It’s available in the Admin Family Connect Plus package today.

District-level admin users can access both Emergency Alerts and Broadcast Notifications when creating a new message. School-level admin users can access Emergency Alerts for their school only. Both features will be available only to users who have specific permissions to send these types of messages.

Permissions for Emergency Alerts and Broadcast Notifications will be added to the standard District Admin and School Admin roles. Additionally, the permissions can be granted to custom roles.

Emergency Alerts can be sent through: SMS text, app, automated call, email, social media post, and website post by selecting “Send A Message” within the District and School product.

All methods are selected by default (text message, app, email, call); however, a user may remove email and/or call. Text messages are always included.

All recipient groups are still selected by default (Family, Students, Staff). But a user may remove any group, as long as at least one is selected when the message is sent.

Additionally, in Delivery Details, the modal will only show tabs for the methods used (for example, if it's Text + Call, the Email section will be omitted). See details in the delivery details FAQ.

District admins can choose to exclude email or phone call delivery for an Emergency Alert, but text messages are always required. They can also decide which recipient groups, such as families, staff, or students, will receive the alert.
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Yes. Short code text messages (5–6 digits) are subject to legal requirements from wireless carriers. TalkingPoints adheres to these standards and will guide districts through compliance during onboarding.

Before a district or school can send an Emergency Alert, a compliance message must first be sent to all users, notifying them that short code messages will be used via the TalkingPoints platform. As a best practice, districts should introduce this during other back-to-school or start-of-year communications so families understand what to expect and to minimize unnecessary opt-outs.

Here’s an example of the short code compliance text messages. They’re found under “Settings”:

In the District product: Welcome to TalkingPoints emergency alerts from [district]. Reply HELP for help, STOP to cancel. Freq varies. Msg&Data rates may apply.

In the School product: Welcome to TalkingPoints emergency alerts from [school]. Reply HELP for help, STOP to cancel. Freq varies. Msg&Data rates may apply.
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Districts and schools choose when to send the compliance message (for example, during Back-to-School). The message goes to all rostered contacts, and no response is required. After that, the system automatically checks every two weeks and sends the message to any newly rostered contacts who have not yet received it. Contacts only receive the compliance message once per short code. However, if a contact opts out after receiving it, they will not receive future texts. These steps follow standard industry practices for short code messaging.

Yes. The district short code (84039) and the school short codes (84046) are separate. Each must send its own compliance message so that families are informed in advance before receiving emergency alert texts from that number. Families with students in multiple schools will only receive the school short code message once accounting for multiple schools.

Broadcast Notifications can be sent through multiple modalities: text or app (not both; required), email, call, based on the contact’s delivery preference, in addition they can be posted to social media (Facebook and X/Twitter) and to a website (RSS and iFrame). These can be sent from the District product only, and only by those with appropriate permissions.

Yes. District admins can remove email or call from a broadcast message, but will always be sent via app or text based on the contact’s preference.

The “delivery details” modal available in the District product will show emergency alert and broadcast message delivery details. The School product will only show emergency alert delivery details. These are found under: “All messages…View” (see below). This expanded modal will indicate what percentage and number of contacts were reached via any modality, plus provide breakdown for text, email, call.

Yes, templates can be used to support quick creation of emergency alerts and broadcast notifications to ensure consistency – and expediency – across schools and the district. They may be used with any message type. If a template was previously used, then the same audio will be available. If the message text is modified after loading the template, the audio will be re-recorded so that the text matches the audio.

It is possible to send Emergency Alerts and Broadcast Notifications without first configuring the email functionality. If the email feature has not been configured, that section will simply not be visible when composing one of those message types. The TalkingPoints Data Integration Team will assist with setup, as needed, during onboarding.

Districts can configure the phone number that automated calls come from, allowing them to use a familiar and recognizable number for all calls.

No, these features are optional, and are turned off by default when creating a new Emergency Alert or Broadcast Notification.

When creating a message, any combination may be included, provided the features have been configured. For example, if Facebook and X (Twitter) are both configured, a user may still opt to post a given message only to one, and not the other.

These features can be configured by District or School users with appropriate permissions. The permission to modify these configurations is included in the base District Admin and School Admin roles, and may be added to custom roles.

For social media: The user will need to have credentials to sign into the appropriate account (Facebook or X/Twitter). During the setup process, the user will sign into that account, and TalkingPoints will store a token so that once the setup process is completed any user with access to send Emergency/Broadcast messages, may send that message to the selected sites.

For website: The user will generate either a link that can be used in an RSS feed, or a code snippet that can be inserted into an iFrame. It’s up to the user to incorporate these into their district or school website.

Yes. Social media and website posting can be configured independently at both the district and school levels.

Each school can manage its own settings through the School product, while the district manages its configurations through the District product.

District-level messages (Emergency & Broadcast) will post only to the sites connected to the District product, and school-level Emergency messages will post only to the school site connected to that school’s product.

If the synced account is not a Premium account, posts are limited to 280 characters. In the case that the TalkingPoints message is longer than that, it will be automatically split into multiple chunks resulting in a threaded post. The system will attempt to work backwards to the next punctuation before splitting; if there is none, then it will look for word breaks.

Families manage their communication preferences in the TalkingPoints Family App under “Settings…Personal information,” where they can adjust settings for emails and automated phone calls. Short code text messages, however, can only be managed by replying with the STOP or START keywords to the number.

By default, all communication methods are enabled for each contact. Emergency Alerts will override preferences for calls and emails, but short code opt-outs cannot be overridden.

TalkingPoints adheres to industry standard and mobile carrier compliance rules. There are multiple ways a user may opt out of TalkingPoints messaging, some of which are overridden by emergency alerts. The table below summarizes how the system handles contact opt-outs.

Yes. Emergency Alerts and Broadcast Notifications are FERPA and COPPA compliant.