Your phone vibrates. A new alert shows a picture of your child in art class with a message from his teacher explaining that today they explored the paintings of Monet. Scrolling through the app, you notice that Friday has an event scheduled, and you suddenly remember that you have a PTA meeting.

Bloomz is a new app that connects teachers and parents. With an intuitive layout designed to be as easy to use as any social media app, Bloomz is built for real-time communication. Teachers can safely communicate with parents, share class photos and updates, and even coordinate volunteer and conference signups. Teachers can send out messages to all the parents at once or can choose to message privately with just one parent. Parents who do not download the app still get emails in order to keep them in the loop. Regarding safety, parents or guardians must be approved by the classroom teacher to access the feed. This way, teachers can share photos, schedules, and other information in a way that remains private. A review from EdTech Roundup explains that “teachers can also setup the basic information for their class to include a course syllabus, important documents, and the types of information that parents might need access to at various points in the year.”

With these features, parents can see what their child is learning in the classroom and continue that learning through conversations at home.

According to TechCrunch, “Bloomz is already targeting users in churches, daycares, summer camps and other institutions that care for kids outside of school.” TechCrunch also reports that Bloomz has already raised $2.3 million in seed money to help develop the app and introduce it to these other markets. Currently, the app is being used in 10,000 schools.

Bloomz exemplifies the potential for using educational technology to streamline communication. By keeping teachers and parents on the same page, the app helps support the student at school and at home. Above all, this is a relational app that helps teachers and parents learn to trust each other as both work to help students succeed in learning.