ACPS Support Helpline Details

Through various stakeholders' comments and planning meetings, we concluded that the need for an ACPS one-stop Helpline/information line was essential for providing information and regular updates to our families. We committed to maintaining multilingual, streamlined, responsive communication channels to support our community members with their various questions and needs that arise due to COVID-19 throughout the instructional day.

ACPS will continue to share information in many different ways, including but not limited to: website, ACPS Express, email, school newsletters, ACPS and school social media, FAQs, video Q&As, videos, text messages, postal mail, robocalls, personal phone calls, etc. We will also respond to the many individual questions that come in each day on our feedback form, by email, and on social media. As often as possible, all communication is in four languages (English, Spanish, Arabic, and Amharic).

Key Components of Support

 We will continue to provide a team of first responders, including three divisionwide parent liaisons and three contracted parent outreach assistants who can speak the language of the caller, or use the language line, to support families in multiple languages via phone call and text. o We operate the Helpline five days a week from 9:00 a.m. –4:00 p.m.  We maintain four specific Helpline phone call numbers (English, Spanish, Amharic, and Arabic).  We provide those supporting the Helpline with continued training and professional development in customer service, handling questions, using resources like the language line, and connecting with specific building/department/office staff.  We create a weekly bank of general answers and information about divisionwide initiatives for the Helpline.  We use a ticket system to facilitate the tracking of notes, responses, who handled the question, call duration, and status.