The Number of School Apps To Keep Track of Will Be the Death of Me

Just a few months into the new school year and the amount of information constantly thrown at parents is overwhelming.

Fact checked by Sarah Scott

I’ll tell you I’m a Gen X parent without telling you I’m a Gen X parent: I hate apps. It took my kids years to convince me to get the Starbucks app even though I have a daily habit of stopping by my local store for a dark roast with cream and sugar. If I’m being honest, even though my daughter installed the app on my phone, I still don’t really know how to use it.

Given my ineptitude/resistance when it comes to tracking something as simple as stars earned for coffee purchases, it’ll shock no one that I am not a fan of the multitude of complex apps students—and therefore their parents—are required to utilize in modern-day schools.

Consider that I have four school-age kids, all in different grades, too. And while they all use the same app to track their grades (whatever happened to just getting a report card mailed home at the end of the quarter though?), this is far from the end of the story.

My elementary school-age kids’ teachers use an app called ClassDojo that tracks class participation. Then there’s IXL for reinforcing math skills—but I need another app called Clever to access IXL, as well as a host of additional apps that tackle other subjects. I have to open another app altogether called Schoology to contact a teacher with questions about any of the aforementioned apps, however. Um, what?

At the middle school and high school level, the teachers use a bunch of different apps that my older kids are luckily savvy enough to handle without me getting involved, A.K.A. complicating things. Besides, I’m too busy getting hit with emails from all my kids’ combined 17 teachers—that is when I’m not busy weeding through Amazon wishlists, Sign-Up Geniuses, or Survey Monkeys.

In addition to app overload and the seemingly endless communication spiral from teachers and room parents, my inbox is also constantly inundated with important notices from each school (I get no fewer than three weekly newsletters), as well as district information, and announcements from our superintendent, sent via text and email, in case you miss one or the other. While I appreciate being kept in the loop, honestly, I’m so behind on reading through the endless updates that I can barely see the loop anymore.

If I do manage to unearth myself from the email landslide on any given day and check in with all the school-related apps that are supposed to make our lives easier, plus read through the many, many Remind threads on my phone from the PTO, and various teachers, I’m immediately assaulted by the apps that are supposed to “help” families organize after-school activities.

My daughter’s dance company uses not one, but two apps to share updates about fees, events, and reminders. My other daughter’s swim team keeps us up to speed via an online portal—but we still get weekly emails with even more updates.

I mean, people: We’re doing too much! Between Quizlet and Typing.com, Home Access Center, and SchoolPay, I long for a printed newsletter, permission slip, or study guide I can just post on the fridge and take down once it’s no longer needed. I yearn for a day when my phone doesn’t buzz every two minutes with a push notification from some app I forgot I even had.

It’s my humble opinion that all these platforms that are supposed to lighten our loads are just mentally exhausting parents, not to mention doing a disservice to our kids. For instance, the constant reminders for parents of older kids take away their accountability. When I was a student, my mom certainly didn’t get a text when I had a test the next day. First of all, cell phones weren’t invented yet—but that’s not the point. By a certain age, I had to know when the test was without my mommy nagging me because the teacher sent out a Remind.

I also feel that the constant access to online grades throughout the quarter only heightens my kids’ stress. They constantly check in to see where they stand, all because information is readily available every moment. It’s a lot of them, and for me—it’s too much.

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re trending toward using fewer apps in schools anytime soon. So sadly, for parents like me, the future will likely see us drowning in technology meant to improve our experience—but instead leaves us less engaged with our kids, as we tap away at screens and feel increasingly frustrated and spread thinner than ever.

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