Camden Joins Other School Districts In Offering Smartphone App For Parents
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Parents in Camden now have a new way to keep tabs on what's happening in the city school district.
Other school districts like Lower Merion, Cherry Hill and the Black Horse Pike Regional District have them. Now Camden has launched a smartphone app.
Deputy Superintendent Katrina McCombs says the cost to develop the app was baked into the district's web deal.
"We already had a contract with the website provider, and so this was a part of it," she said. "And so the cost was very nominal."
The app provides lunch menus, and it can aggregate events at several schools into one activity calendar, and it can send push notifications of closings or delayed openings.
"It's very important that [parents] are able to get information quickly," McCombs said, "so that they can make arrangements for their children in the event of an emergency."
Parent Lidia Carrero has three children at the US Wiggins College Preparatory Family Lab School, and she says the app has already come in handy.
"I receive information faster than I normally would by a phone blast or even my email. But with this, the notifications pop right up on your phone," Carrero said. "I've been told about a delay when we had the snowstorm. I've also been told when schools are actually closing."
Camden schools already have Facebook pages and text alerts to keep parents in the loop.
