Parental Engagement Made Easy for K-12 Schools With Release of Apps for Education Platform(TM)

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA--(Marketwired - Feb 17, 2014) - School districts hoping to increase parent, student and teacher engagement just got a valuable new tool with the release of the Apps For Education Platform™ from WillowTree Apps, set to be showcased at the 2014 Texas School Public Relations Association (TSPRA) Conference.

The Apps For Education Platform™ gives K-12 school districts the ability to quickly and easily develop and deploy customized mobile apps and HTML5 websites for their schools. The platform also allows parents to access important school information in one convenient location through single sign-on. App users can access information like school news, calendars, maps, lunch menus, as well as arts and sports information. Password-protected areas within the app allow authorized users to access critical student information like grades, progress reports, attendance records, and homework assignments.

School districts using the platform have the ability to send push notifications and alerts through the app in the event of an emergency, impending severe weather, school closings or to alert parents about specific issues related to their child like unexcused absences and tardiness.

While parents enjoy easy access to school information through single sign-on, school districts also benefit behind the scenes from the platform's ability to integrate seamlessly with a wide-variety of existing IT systems. As a result, school districts do not need to make any major IT investments or spend time entering data into another new system before getting started with their mobile program.

Texas' McKinney Independent School District was the first district to roll out an app using the Apps for Education Platform™ with the misdGO app for Apple (iOS), Android and HTML5.

"We wanted to give our parents a comprehensive and efficient way to access what they want when they want -- and we also wanted to find a way to save money in the process," said Cody Cunningham, Chief Communications Officer, McKinney Independent School District. "The Apps for Education Platform allowed us to create our misdGO app quickly and efficiently without having to invest in whole new systems -- and we were even able to make it easy for our parents by letting them use their current website logins. All of this allowed us to reduce our printed newsletter efforts, resulting in net savings."

Other Texas school districts using the award-winning platform include Alief, Duncanville and Highland Park. The University of Virginia, Syracuse University and Harvard Business Publishing also use the platform from WillowTree.

About WillowTree Apps^®, Inc.
WillowTree Apps is one of the largest and most respected mobile strategy, design and development companies in the U.S. Named by Inc. magazine for two consecutive years (2013, 2012) as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America, WillowTree provides a full suite of consulting and application solutions to clients nationwide including Harvard Business Publishing, The University of Virginia, Johnson & Johnson, GE & The Verge.

For More Information Please Visit: http://www.willowtreeapps.com/about/