Blasts for schools and families
Give schools and families a direct connection for the information parents shouldn't have to hunt for: closures, emergencies, schedule changes, pickup instructions and the reminders that keep a school year running.
Built on Blasts. Connection-based, encrypted, no subscription, credits never expire.
School communication does not fail loudly. It fails one family at a time, and the front office hears about it later.
The district makes the call before dawn. The email goes out, the robocall goes out, the website is updated. By 7:15 a.m. there are still cars in the drop-off lane and a phone that will not stop ringing, because the message sat under overnight retail promotions in a hundred inboxes.
A water main breaks and school lets out at 12:30 p.m. The office needs every family, not most of them, to know who is picking up and when. A group text gets muted, an email gets read at 3 p.m., and the after-school program is now covering children whose parents are still at work.
Picture day, field trip permission slips, the spring concert moved to Thursday. Every one of these was announced. Every week a teacher stays late fielding the same question from a parent who never saw it, because the newsletter arrives with forty other emails and reads like all of them.
There's another way
Blasts is built around persistent connections between parties who already know each other. A parent connects with the school once. From that point on, the school has a direct, encrypted channel that shows the message on the parent's phone or desktop screen with the sender's name and photo, and an emergency badge that pulses red and pins to the top when it counts.
Schools have something most organizations do not: every family is already paying attention at enrollment and back-to-school. That is where the connection happens.
A family enrolls, completes the back-to-school packet or attends back-to-school night. Right there, in the paperwork they already complete, the school offers a direct connection.
The parent accepts the school's connection on their phone or computer. One connection, made once, for the whole school year.
From then on, the snow day, the early dismissal, the field trip reminder and the word from the principal land directly on the parent's screen, from a name they know.
Parents opt in; a family that has not accepted the school's connection cannot be Blasted, and a parent can silently disconnect at any time.
The daily newsletter still belongs in email. These messages belong on the screen.
Snow days, heat days, power outages, boil-water notices. One Blast to the all-families list, sent with the Emergency badge so it pins to the top and pulses red.
Shelter-in-place, reunification instructions, all-clear notices. Sent from a named, verified school sender that parents already recognize, with read acknowledgements so the office knows who has seen it.
Early release, late buses, a moved half day, a field trip returning late. Sent to just the grade or program affected, with a poll to confirm who is picking up.
Game times, rainouts, practice moves and tournament brackets, sent to the families of one team instead of the whole school.
Back-to-school night, conferences, concerts, science fair. Event Blasts carry a countdown and a calendar attachment so the date lands where the family will actually see it.
Picture day, permission slip deadlines, lunch balance, spirit week, the reading log due Friday. Short typed Blasts to the right list, without a robocall.
Email is where newsletters and forms live. Robocalls and SMS are where carrier fees, opt-out rules and unanswered calls live. Neither was designed for an organization that already knows exactly which families it needs to reach.
Blasts credits are bought once and never expire. One typed Blast to one parent is one prepaid credit; a voice Blast is two. There is no carrier fee, so a school can budget a year of communication as a single deposit instead of a monthly platform fee.
The message appears on the parent's screen with the principal's face and name. Read acknowledgements tell the office who has actually seen it, so follow-up calls go only to the families who haven't.
Distribution lists per grade, program, bus route or team mean the third-grade field trip update does not interrupt every family in the building. Large lists can be staggered into daily waves for non-urgent messages.
Encrypted tunnels, no tracking pixels, messages that auto-delete after 30 days with an optional self-destruct timer, and voice recordings that are not stored on central servers. Parents can revoke the school at any time without the school being notified.
| SMS | Blasts | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Reaches parents who don't check email | Depends on whether the person opens email | Yes, if you have consented mobile numbers | Delivered to the connected person's phone or desktop screen |
| Per-message carrier cost | Low | Per message, per carrier | One prepaid credit per typed Blast, no carrier fee; credits never expire |
| Confirms which families actually saw it | Open-tracking pixels only | Delivery only | Read acknowledgements from confirmed actions |
| Family must have connected first | No | Consent required | Yes, by design; parents can disconnect silently |
| Encrypted in transit | Varies | No | ECDH P-256 + AES-256-GCM |
Comparison reflects published Blasts.app product information as of August 2026 and general characteristics of email and SMS. A cost model for your enrollment and message frequency will be part of the school rollout guide.
Blasts is not a way to message strangers, and DirectToParents does not pretend otherwise. It is built for the audience a school knows completely: the families of the children in its care. That constraint is what makes the channel trustworthy for a parent who already receives too much.
For the person who will set it up
For the front office, technology coordinator or district IT staff who will set this up: here is what sits behind the three steps above.
Blasts gives the school a personal invite link and a 4-digit connection code. Add them to the enrollment packet, the back-to-school night handout, the online registration confirmation and the welcome email from the front office. Parents on their phone tap the link; parents with the printed code enter it. The school approves each request.
For a school or district with a roster of families who have opted in to school communications, export it from your student information system, upload it, and send personalized Blasts invitations at scale through your existing email service (Google Workspace Gmail, Microsoft 365 or Amazon SES). Each parent still approves the connection.
Most parents will use the iOS or Android app. Parents at a desk during the day can add the browser extension (Chrome, Edge, Brave and other Chromium browsers) or use the web app at blasts.app. Each device is a separate connection.
Create lists for the whole school, each grade, the after-school program, the bus route and the athletics families. A list reaches every member at once with no per-recipient cap, and large lists can be staggered into daily waves for non-urgent messages.
Typed Blasts with images and links, voice Blasts from the principal (auto-transcribed), Event Blasts with a countdown and calendar attachment, or a quick poll to confirm pickup plans. Closures and emergencies go out with the Emergency badge, which pulses red and auto-pins to the top.
Recruiting connections is a back-to-school task, not a one-time IT switch. Domain Auto-Approve is built for organizations whose members share a verified email domain, so it does not apply to families. Exact administrator steps will be documented in the school rollout guide once confirmed against current Blasts documentation.
In one paragraph
DirectToParents is an implementation of Blasts for schools, districts, daycares and after-school programs that need a direct communication channel with the families they serve. Because a school already has an enrollment relationship with every family, the enrollment or back-to-school moment becomes the point where parents connect once, after which closures, emergencies, schedule changes and reminders land directly on the parent's phone or desktop screen instead of in an email inbox or an SMS thread.
Yes. Blasts is connection-based, and DirectToParents is designed around the fact that a school already has an enrollment relationship with every family and a natural moment, back-to-school, when it can invite them.
Connections can be established through an email invite link, a 4-digit connection code printed on enrollment materials, or a personal invite link. Schools with an opted-in family roster can send personalized invitations at scale; see the implementation section above.
By offering the connection at enrollment and back-to-school: the school's invite link and 4-digit connection code go into the enrollment packet, registration confirmation, back-to-school night handout and welcome email, and an opted-in family roster can be invited with personalized invitations sent through the school's Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or Amazon SES account. Parents accept once and then receive Blasts through the iOS or Android app, a browser extension, or the web app.
Parents always retain the ability to silently cut off the school. Step-by-step administrator instructions will be published in the DirectToParents school rollout guide once confirmed against current Blasts documentation.
No. A parent must approve the school's sender before any Blast is delivered. Blasts is built for existing relationships, which for DirectToParents means the families enrolled in your school or program.
Blasts have no per-message carrier fee, travel over encrypted tunnels rather than the phone network, show the principal's or school's name and photo, and report read acknowledgements from confirmed actions. They require a prior connection, which a robocall list does not.
Yes. Distribution lists let a sender name a group once, such as a grade, a building, a bus route or a program, and reach every member at the same time with no per-recipient cap. Large lists can also be staggered into daily waves for non-urgent messages.
A typed Blast consumes one credit per recipient, so 600 credits; a voice Blast consumes two per recipient. Credits are prepaid, never expire, and are available through BlastCredits.com.
Blasts.app publishes the following: peer-to-peer encrypted tunnels using ECDH P-256 and AES-256-GCM, no tracking pixels, messages auto-deleted after 30 days with an optional self-destruct timer, and voice recordings not stored on central servers. Your district's technology and legal staff should evaluate these against your own policies; DirectToParents makes no regulatory compliance claims.
An iOS app, an Android app, browser extensions for Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, Arc and other Chromium browsers, and the responsive web app at blasts.app.
DirectToParents is expanding into a full implementation resource for school-to-family communication on Blasts.
We're finishing the first edition now. Join the early-access list and we'll send it to you as soon as it's available.