Many school districts struggle to communicate with immigrant families due to linguistic, cultural and technological constraints. As an ESL teacher with nearly 20 years experience in the multilingual classrooms, I have had the privilege of working with numerous families from diverse backgrounds who deeply value the education their children receive.  Many families we serve face the economic reality of starting from scratch in a new country and only have access to outdated phones which often lack sufficient storage and capacity to run many apps. Additionally, many families often rely on prepaid phone plans with limited data capabilities. 

Over the past few years, Talking Points has become a lifeline in bridging the communication gap between schools and families. Its SMS feature, in particular, allows teachers like myself to  communicate directly with all families. Recently, TalkingPoints announced its decision to discontinue the SMS feature for its free version. This move could disproportionately affect multilingual families already grappling with financial and technological challenges by cutting off a crucial avenue for receiving timely updates about their child’s education in the language they best understand.

As a moderators of a Facebook group of more than 15,000 ESL teachers, I have recommended this app to our members dozens of times. I have also heard from hundreds of these educators about how devastating the removal of this feature will be to our classroom communication. Without SMS updates, many families may only receive crucial messages when they have access to wifi or be left out of from this line communication entirely, limiting their access to our educational communities.

The solution is clear: as a trusted partner in family communication Talking Points should NOT entirely eliminate the SMS option for the free plan. If this truly is a financial impossibility for the nonprofit organization, they should offer a paid subscription tailored for individual classrooms, allowing teachers to continue using this invaluable service even if their entire school does not adopt it. This approach would empower educators to maintain communication lines with every family, especially those who have already been marginalized by linguistic and cultural barriers in their districts.

In an era that increasingly relies on technology, we must not overlook those who this technology was originally developed to support. By signing this petition, you're advocating for families and educators who are often left on their own to figure out how to navigate the linguistic barriers to effective communication. Please ensure that no family is left in the dark. Urge Talking Points to reconsider this change and find a way to offer SMS communication to the teachers and families who need it the most.