School Communications
Email only this term's families, choose which class alerts guardians receive, and know which school emails Muin sends automatically, including whether parents are told when a child is absent.
A school talks to families three ways in Muin: a message you send to a program’s families, class alerts that fire on their own once you turn them on, and the transactional emails that follow an action such as an enrollment or a payment.
When you’d use this
- You need to tell this term’s families something, and only this term’s families.
- You want parents emailed when their child is marked absent, or need to know whether parents are told automatically today.
- A parent says they were never told about a payment, and you need to see what went out.
- You are turning a noisy notice off for the whole organization.
Message a program’s families
Open the program, Participants tab, Message participants.
That hands the roster to the message composer with this program’s families already selected, so you are not rebuilding an audience by hand. From there you write the message, and you can attach a form if you are asking families to sign up for something. Muin tracks who has responded and who has not, so you chase only the families still outstanding.
Families see it in two places: the message itself, and a Sign-ups section in their family portal, where a parent signs up a child rather than themselves.
The Announcements screen is not this. Announcements are for your own staff: the audience is everyone, roles, departments or a location, with no program or class targeting. For families, use Message participants.
For one child, there is also a Messages thread in the family portal, between the parent and the child’s teacher.
To write to the guardians of students who were absent or late too often in a month, use Message guardians on the Tardiness report. See Who was late or absent this month.
Class alerts
These are the per-child notices a guardian receives automatically. There are seven, and all seven are off until you turn them on.
| Alert | Fires when |
|---|---|
| Absent | The child is marked absent on the register |
| Not checked in | The child has not been checked in |
| Not picked up | The child has not been picked up |
| Unexcused for the month | The child passes your monthly allowance of unexcused absences |
| Grade posted | A mark lands in the gradebook |
| Progress sheet | A teacher publishes a daily sheet or progress report |
| Monthly attendance summary | The month closed with the child over your absent-days or minutes-late line. Sent on the 2nd to the 4th of the next month, and only if the Monthly attendance summary alert is also on |
Turn them on at Settings, Nonprofit, Class Alerts.
One thing to check first: a class with no teacher of record and no program coordinator has its alerts calculated and then dropped, because there is nobody to attribute them to. The settings screen tells you how many classes are in that state. Assign a teacher of record, or a program coordinator, before relying on alerts.
The emails Muin sends on its own
These are not alerts you switch on per class. They follow an action.
Enrollment
- Enrollment confirmation to the family
- Waitlist promotion, when a waitlisted child is given a place
- An enrollment summary to your administrators
- A registration alert, and a waitlist-join alert, to the coordinator
- A sign-up opportunity, when you ask families to sign up for something
Requests from a parent
- Absence report received, and absence report declined
- Class change approved, and class change declined
- Child detail change approved
Tuition
- A payment request, when you ask a family to pay
- Tuition amount changed
- Offline balance due, and the recurring offline balance reminder
- Offline payment received
- Plan complete, when the last installment lands
- Recurring charge failed, card expiring, and payment method missing
Policies
- Handbook acknowledgment reminder
There is no term-start or term-reminder email
Muin does not mail families when a term begins. Families meet your term dates on the published calendar in their portal, which they can add to a phone. If you want to announce a term, send a message to the program’s participants.
Where to see what went out
- Sent to this family on Families & tuition, for one household.
- The receipt state on a payment: Sent, Generated or Failed.
- The Email Activity Log, for everything.
If nobody in a family has an email address, the record screen says so and nothing is sent. Add an address to a guardian, then use Resend to guardians.
Turning something off for the whole organization
Customer emails are governed centrally at Settings, Communication & AI, Customer Emails, with the school ones grouped under Education. Turning one off there turns it off everywhere.
Muin does not go quiet about it. Tuition owed shows a banner reading “Reminders withheld by email policy for N families”, with a link to the email settings, so a suppressed reminder is still visible as a number you owe somebody.
What it affects
- A class alert emails every guardian on file with an email address, one email per address even when two children share it.
- Turning a customer email off suppresses it for every program, not just one.
- A family that opts out in their portal stops receiving the optional notices.
- A message with a form attached creates the sign-up a parent completes in their portal.
When it goes wrong
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| A class’s alerts never arrive | The class has no teacher of record and no program coordinator, so the alerts are dropped | Assign a teacher of record, or a program coordinator |
| No alerts at all | All seven class alerts are off by default | Turn on the ones you want at Settings, Nonprofit, Class Alerts |
| “Reminders withheld by email policy for N families.” | The tuition reminder is off organization-wide | Re-enable it in Customer Emails, or chase those families another way |
| Nothing was emailed for a recorded payment | No guardian in the family has an email address | Add an address to a guardian, then use Resend to guardians |
| “No email was sent. Your organization has no mailing address on file…” | Every email to a family must carry your mailing address | Add your Business Address on the organization profile, then send again |
| A family got no term-start notice | There is no term-start email | Send a message to the program’s participants |
| Announcements will not target one class | Announcements are a staff tool | Use Message participants on the program |
Next step
Give families the portal where most of this lands: The parent portal.