SPOTSWOOD, NJ - Many Spotswood School District parents took to social media on July 12 to try and see if an email they'd received from Sangha was legitimate in light of a flood of internet and phone scams plaguing the area. However, the district is in fact switching to a new alert system for the 2018-19 school district.
"Yes, we are moving away from Honeywell," Spotswood Schools IT tweeted after Tapino Milltown/Spotswood reached out via the social media outlet Twitter. "That email was from our new provider, Sangha. More information coming soon."
Quite a few parents were confused by the email, receiving invites for certain schools in the district, but not others. Some were unsure whether or not to download the app, worrying it was a scam.
Spotswood School IT also tweeted that the Sangha app would be "very helpful with receiving notifications from the school."
An email response from the Spotswood IT help desk explained that yesterday's email from Sangha was the first test alert notifying parents in the district of the upcoming change. The district is also in the process of updating their website to reflect the change from Honeywell to Sangha.
"The invite was sent as a district invite, unlike Honeywell," the email explained. "Sangha integrates with Genesis, so you just have one account with all of your students assigned to it."
Genesis is the system the Spotswood School District uses that allows parents to track their children's grades, attendance and more. Parents receive teacher assignments, student schedules and marking period report cards via Genesis.
Sangha was founded by Pavan Batchu, Srikanth Thadakamalla and Srivatsan Srinivasan. The trio were all parents in the San Francisco Bay Area frustrated by the task of keeping on top of all the school notices, permission slips and flyers. As all parents know this process can be daunting especially with multiple children to keep track of. Through the frustration and guilt of missed deadlines, the Sangha App was born.
Today, Sangha has joined forces with Edlio, which works to provide school administrators, staff and parents with efficient an communication system that suits the needs of school districts.