Mark B. Skertich, Superintendent | Collinsville Community Unit School District 10
Mark B. Skertich, Superintendent | Collinsville Community Unit School District 10
Kahok families in the Collinsville Community Unit School District 10 are being informed of a change in how they receive text messages from their schools. ParentSquare, the district's communication platform, will now send most messages from regular 10-digit local phone numbers instead of a single 5-digit short code.
According to the announcement, direct messages between parents and teachers or staff will come from unique numbers for each conversation. Classroom and group posts will use one number per school, while school-wide posts will also have their own dedicated number per school. Alerts, digests, district-wide posts, and district group messages will continue to use the existing 5-digit short code.
"You’ll be able to see who a message is from and keep texts organized by person or school. For example, messages from your child’s teacher will come from a different number than messages from the school office—so it’s easier to stay on top of conversations and know exactly who’s contacting you," according to the statement sent to families.
The district notes that this update follows requirements set by major phone carriers such as Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. These companies now require mass messaging services like ParentSquare to use standard 10-digit numbers rather than short codes in order to improve delivery reliability and prevent texts from being flagged as spam.
No action is required for families beyond saving new numbers when they receive them for the first time. The change only affects SMS text messaging; emails and app notifications remain unchanged.
Collinsville Community Unit School District 10 serves Madison and St. Clair counties with several schools including Collinsville High School and multiple elementary schools (source). The district employs over 400 teachers with an average salary of $60,392; about four out of five teachers are women (source). The student population is diverse: 56 percent White, 14.1 percent Black, 24.1 percent Hispanic, and less than one percent Asian (source). In 2020, spending per student was $16,872 for a total expenditure exceeding $104 million (source).
Families are encouraged to watch for initial texts from new numbers so they can save them in their contacts for future reference.
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