FASTalk is Easy & Works

Parents receive simple activities by text in their preferred language to support at-home learning.

Teachers engage diverse families through two-way messaging with automated translation in more than 100 languages.

Activities are aligned with the academic calendar and curriculum in preK-5, and sent automatically.

Teachers receive a weekly summary of the activities parents complete.

Check out our most recent webinar!

Family Engagement Lab hosted a webinar on Tuesday May 7, 2019 featuring administrators who piloted the tool this year.

FASTalk Webinar, May 7, 2019 10AM Louisiana Schools from FASTalk on Vimeo.

Teviron Ross (LaBelle Aire Elementary, East Baton Rouge Parish) and Angela Beck (Celerity Schools) shared why FASTalk was relevant for their teachers and how it helped them "redefine what parent participation looks like."

FASTalk in Louisiana

During the 2018-2019 school year, Family Engagement Lab partnered with the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) to pilot a family engagement tool, FASTalk. FASTalk sends parents text messages with at-home literacy activities aligned to what students are doing in the classroom.​

FASTalk is used by:

• Calcasieu
• Celerity Louisiana
• East Baton Rouge
• Jefferson
• Pointe Coupee
• Sabine

Supported Curricula

• American Reading Company ARC Core ELA
• Core Knowledge Foundation Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA)
• EL Education ELA
• ​ELA Guidebooks (3-5)
  • Sample Messages (4th Grade)
• Fountas and Pinnell Literacy
• Frog Street Pre-K
  • ​Sample Messages​
• Great Minds Wit & Wisdom (K-2)
• Teaching Strategies Creative Curriculum
• Teaching Strategies Gold Assessment

      ...and others available upon request

What do teachers think of FASTalk?

Family Engagement Lab recently surveyed teachers participating in the 2018-2019 FASTalk pilot. 

Nearly all teachers indicated that they wanted to use FASTalk again next year, and are seeing the benefit of improved parent-teacher communication.

Teachers reported additional benefits of the weekly text messages, such as:

• alignment of the literacy activities to the curriculum
• easy set-up process
• little to no time spent on sending the text messages each week

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Notably, teachers indicated that they want more parent participation. This speaks to the need to expand FASTalk to support more students across the state next year. View our full report!
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​Check out what teachers in Sabine Parish had to say about their experience using FASTalk.

How can I fund FASTalk?

• FASTalk is eligible for multiple funds: Title I (including Part C), Title II, Title III, Title IV, and IDEA
• ​Family Engagement Lab will continue to work with the Louisiana Department of Education to offer FASTalk to students with disabilities within the SPDG cohorts in 2019-2020

Questions?

Let's Meet!

• June 26-28, 2019: Teacher Leader Summit (New Orleans)
• July 7, 2019: National Family and Community Engagement Conference (Reno)