Rocklin Mom's App Helps Parents Keep In Touch With Schools
ROCKLIN (CBS13) — A Rocklin mom created an app that's making life a lot easier for parents, students and administrators.
When cops surrounded a Placer County home in a standoff with a murder suspect in mid-May, nearby Whitney High School in Rocklin was placed on lockdown.
But parents were assured of their children's safety every few minutes.
"As soon as we knew we went on lockdown, I sent push notifications out to families," said Assistant Principal Jennifer Hanks.
When we met Hanks, she was working on a less serious alert for the school's custom app.
"Today we need to set up a push notification to remind students that summer school forms are due," she said.
The app is the brainchild of Rocklin mom Carin Lane, who saw a need for better communication at her own kids' school.
"If we could take the trend of the mobile apps and take all of those school communications and put them on the phones so that we might have more success with our volunteering or keeping people abreast with what's going on with the school," she said.
Parents can use School Apptitude for dozens of tasks, like viewing school calendar, adding money to lunch accounts, or even counting a child absent for the day.
"To be able to find information on any of the kids and their different schools at a touch of a button has been just transformative for me," said mom Jennifer Varanini.
The mother of four says it used to be a nightmare sifting through different channels of communication from her kids' schools. Now she has the app for each of their schools.
"Before that I was missing deadlines," she said. "I was feeling kind of like a failure mom, and so this allows me to kind of look like I have my act together with all four kids," she said.
