LINQ, the leading K-12 education business solutions provider, has launched LINQ Connect, a K-12 education SaaS platform to improve parent-to-school transactions. LINQ Connect is the latest iteration of the widely used TITAN Family Portal platform, adopted by more than 1,500 school districts,16,000 schools, and over 1.2 million parents and guardians across the US.
LINQ Connect provides parents and schools with a modernized payment system that eliminates the need to send cash for school lunches, class field trips or additional course materials. The automated payment platform offers a secure method for financial transactions to ensure successful and accurate payments, reduces risks associated with cash transactions and relies less on school finance staff to make daily cash-on-hand deposits.
Speaking about the development, Chief Executive Officer of LINQ, Bryan Jones, said:
Districts are feeling the adverse effects of staffing shortages, budget restrictions and school meal debt, so they need a system to manage communication and financial transactions with parents and guardians efficiently. LINQ Connect offers a solution that simplifies the management of information and financial transactions throughout the school year for our district partners, easing daily interactions for busy parents and students and helping schools strengthen their relationships with the communities they serve.
As schools face unprecedented levels of unpaid meal debt, LINQ Connect allows schools to send notifications about low balances or debt to parents and guardians discreetly and directly. Moreover, it enables parents and guardians to input food allergy information, reviews nutritional information for school meals and places spending restrictions on accounts to ensure funds last the intended period. The platform can be translated into Armenian, Burmese, Chinese, French, Korean, Spanish, Russian and Vietnamese to ensure all parents and guardians can access their children’s nutrition and play an active role in their educational experience.
Senior Vice President of LINQ, Brandy Keller, commented:
LINQ Connect was designed to ease the burden on parents and school district office staff through easy-to-use technologies that guarantee the information is readily available and accessible for parents and caregivers. Now, they can digitally access their children’s meal accounts, apply for free or reduced meals, and monitor their nutrition through a single payment system that is secure and convenient and provides parents and caregivers with the opportunity to share information with their schools.
Schools that currently use the platform will have access to a library of resources to support communication and engagement with parents and guardians, as well as district toolkits offered in Spanish and English to support the adoption of the enhanced platform for new and existing users. For parents, using the new platform is as simple as downloading a new application; their past balances will transfer seamlessly.
LINQ is the only company to deliver a full suite of integrated solutions to help the K-12 community improve operational efficiency, optimize financial performance, maintain state regulations, and increase participation in nutritional programs. It offers solutions for finance, human resources, nutrition management, digital payments, school and district websites, custom forms including student registration, and document management. The firm has been serving the K-12 community for over 30 years.
Last September, LINQ announced its partnership with Ashe County Schools in Ashe County, NC, and Provo City School District in Provo City, UT, to modernize their school districts by successfully implementing a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.