Alyssa Thornley

Alyssa Thornley has spent her career working to support schools and communities in providing opportunity to all students. In positions as a teacher, professional development coordinator, and as a volunteer, she has focused on the community’s role in education, and in designing efficient programs that work for diverse needs. Alyssa leads TransACT’s customer engagement and market strategy efforts, and works to ensure innovative programs, guidance, and thought leadership from across the country’s districts are being shared and spread.
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Recent Posts

NAELPA Publishes White Paper on Having an Asset-Based Mindset Toward Multilingual Learners

By Alyssa Thornley | September 22, 2022

The National Association of English Learner Program Administrators’ (NAELPA) Advocating for Multilingual Learners Committee recently posted a brief white paper, The Importance of an Asset-Based Mindset and Using Asset-Based Terminology when Referencing the ESSA Subgroup – ELs. The white paper summarizes the results of the committee’s research on this topic.

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BoardOnTrack, the Charter School Governance Software Leader, Partners with TransACT to Support Growth

By Alyssa Thornley | April 5, 2022

After over a decade of working with charter school boards and nonprofits across the country to provide a powerful governance platform, BoardOnTrack has been acquired by TransACT Communications.

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Easily Add Zoom and Teams Meeting Link to ParentNotices

By Alyssa Thornley | November 3, 2021

TransACT ParentNotices subscribers get unlimited access for all district users to over 200 expertly written and translated parent notifications. These notices have been legally reviewed (where applicable) to comply with federal education laws and are regularly updated to remain current with changes. ParentNotices supports administrators in a compliant parent and family engagement plan and can serve as evidence of implementation in the event of a state monitoring visit, ensuring districts have genuine support when they need it most.   

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August 2021 Release: Easily Add Parents and Staff to ParentNotices

By Alyssa Thornley | September 22, 2021

TransACT ParentNotices is parent engagement software used by school districts and state departments of education to support compliant and equitable parent engagement. Subscribers of ParentNotices can have access to over 200 expertly written and translated notices that have been legally reviewed where applicable to comply with federal education laws. ParentNotices supports administrators in a compliant parent engagement plan and can serve as evidence of implementation in the event of a state monitoring visit.

The August 2021 ParentNotices feature release involves enhanced monitoring capabilities when adding parents and staff into the system.

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Webinar: Increases in Federal Requirements for Parent and Family Engagement

By Alyssa Thornley | August 10, 2021

Effective school-to-home communication plays a vital role when it comes to achieving successful student outcomes. However, staying in compliance with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requirements when communicating with parents and family members can prove challenging and the pandemic has only exasperated the difficulties as schools operated remotely.

TransACT’s Executive Director of Federal Programs and State Relationships is leading a webinar on the “Increases in Federal Requirements for Parent and Family Engagement” on August 25th, 2021, at 9:30 am PT / 10:30 am MT, 11:30 am CT, and 12:00 pm ET.   

In this webinar, you will learn about significant changes to parent and family engagement under ESSA, including:    

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ParentNotices: June Feature Release

By Alyssa Thornley | July 2, 2021

The June 2021 ParentNotices release further supports school and district staff by collecting parent signatures on crucial notifications while improving content management with auto-fill student assessment results. The latest release includes: 

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Spring 2021 Release: Advanced Reporting for Easier Parent and Family Engagement Compliance in TransACT ParentNotices

By Alyssa Thornley | May 11, 2021

TransACT ParentNotices is parent engagement software that is used by school districts and state departments of education to support compliant and equitable parent engagement. Subscribers of ParentNotices have access to over 200 different expertly written and translated notices that have been legally reviewed where applicable for compliance with federal education laws. ParentNotices supports administrators in a compliant parent engagement plan and can serve as evidence of implementation in the event of a state monitoring visit.  

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The App-Garden Partners with TransACT Communications to Offer K12 Better Options for Modern Transportation, Operations and HR Challenges

By Alyssa Thornley | February 16, 2021

TransACT Communications (transact.com) has acquired App-Garden (app-garden.com), a leader in K-12 transportation and operations administrative software. The App-Garden team has over 27 years of experience in developing easy-to-use administrative software to support school bus routing, field trip management, event scheduling and facilities management, volunteer operations, virtual substitute teacher training, and more. Working together, TransACT and The App-Garden are proud to offer K12 administrators cost effective software and outstanding customer service to help improve operations and service delivery in school district operations.

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Mobile-Friendly Parent-School Communications For All Learning Models

By Alyssa Thornley | August 28, 2020

TransACT's ParentNotices software platform, used by school districts and state departments of education to enable compliant and equitable parent engagement, has launched a significant upgrade to support schools in touchless and paperless engagement. Communication requirements as set forth by ESEA (ESSA) and Civil Rights are required regardless of learning model selected by schools, districts, and states during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The upgrades and enhancements support districts in meeting complex federal requirements for parent and family engagement and uphold central district policies for communication with parents while simultaneously increasing a parent's ability to respond to the school, district, and in some cases state. The latest release includes:

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Polaris Growth Fund Makes Strategic Investment in TransACT Communications

By Alyssa Thornley | February 21, 2020

(Seattle, WA, February 21, 2020) TransACT Communications, LLC (“TransACT”), a leading SaaS provider of engagement, compliance and payment solutions for the education market, has received a strategic growth investment from the Polaris Growth Fund (“PGF”). PGF is a software-focused, specialized affiliate fund of Polaris Partners, a Boston-based private investment firm with two decades of technology investing experience.

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