What's New — Fall 2026 Update

Fall 2026 Update

Group calendars

A class, team, or club can now keep its own calendar. Group leaders add events — a practice, a field trip, a booster meeting, a due date — and they land on the Calendar tab and the Today and Tomorrow cards next to everything else.

• Only members see them. A group's events reach the people who joined that group — they aren't school-wide.
• Filter by group. When your calendar carries events from more than one group, chips appear above the list so you can show just one team's schedule.
• A reminder the day before. You'll get a notification the day before a group event (the evening before, for all-day events). Muting the group with its bell silences these too.
• Announcements that arrive when they're useful. Leaders can have an event announce itself in the group feed a week ahead rather than the moment it's created — so a coach entering a whole season doesn't fill your phone in one evening.
• Everything else works as usual: tap an event for details, Add to Calendar, or Get Directions.

See Calendars.

School Courier on a computer

The app now runs in a web browser. Go to schoolcourier.app on a laptop, desktop, or school Chromebook and you get the same feed, groups, calendars, and messages — with a real keyboard and your computer's files for photos.

• Same account. Sign in the way you always do; you can be signed in on your phone and your computer at once.
• Nothing to install. No download, no store, no IT rollout — and it's always the current version.
• A one-time check. The first visit shows a brief Just a quick check screen that keeps bots and search engines out. You'll see it about once a year per device.
• Notifications stay on your phone. Keep the phone app installed for closings and emergencies.

See On a Computer.

Approvals that don't get lost

For group owners and leaders. When a parent asks to join your private group, or a post or comment needs your OK, it's now much harder to miss:

• A count on My Groups. The Pending approvals row shows how many items are waiting on you.
• A card on Home. While anything is waiting, an approvals waiting card sits above Today. Tap it to review; it disappears when your queue is empty.
• A gentle reminder. If something is still waiting after a day, you'll get a reminder on a school-day morning — a notification first, then an email. At most three over about a week. Turn them off any time under your profile → Notifications → Approval reminders.

See Groups and Notifications.

Smaller improvements

• Message staff from the directory. On the Staff page, a Message button now appears on the card of any staff member you can message in the app — no need to search by name from the Messages tab. See Staff Directory.
• Links look like buttons. A web address in a post now shows as a short button with the site's name, like SignUpGenius ›, instead of the long address. See My Feed.
• Practices and cancellations. Team schedules now include practices — with a Practices pill to hide them — and a called-off game stays on the schedule with a Canceled chip instead of vanishing. See Athletics.
• Upcoming events on a group's page. Open a group and its next few calendar events sit in an Upcoming card above the posts.
• Sign-in that recovers. If a text can't reach your phone, the code screen offers email instead; if a code expires while you're filling in the sign-up form, you can get a new one without starting over; and if your phone autofills the wrong code, the app says which one to use. See Troubleshooting.
• Notifications while you're in the app. A notification that arrives while the app is open shows as a brief banner at the top of the screen instead of slipping by unseen.
• On a computer. In a wide browser window the tabs move to a navigation bar across the top, and links open in a new tab. See On a Computer.
• A team's posts, all together. A team's Team Info tab now gathers posts from every group linked to that team, not just one.
• A full year of alerts. Alert History keeps everything sent in the past year, split into Last 24 hours and Earlier.
• Calendar is a tab. Most schools now have Calendar in the bottom bar instead of tucked under More.
• Alerts you can hear. School-wide alerts now play your iPhone's notification sound — before, they arrived without one.
• Save or share a photo. Open any photo in a post or message full screen and the share button in the corner lets you save it, print it, or send it on.
• Nicknames welcome. First and last names can now include parentheses, like Robert (Bob). See Settings & Profile.
• No more silent dead ends in Messages. If a conversation can't be started, the app says Couldn't start a conversation and tells you why. See Messages.
• Menus on Android. Three-dot ⋮ menus now open as a sheet with every option and a Cancel button, and the Back button closes them.
• Photos on a slow connection. Uploads get more time, so a batch of photos over weak cell signal no longer fails partway.
• Steadier sign-in. Verification codes last 30 minutes and an older code keeps working after you ask for a new one, so a slow text no longer sends you back to the start.
• A gentler nudge to update. When your app is behind, a dismissible banner on Home offers the store update instead of leaving you on old software.

August 2026

In the feed

• Comments & replies. You can now comment on posts in your groups, and reply under a specific comment so the back-and-forth stays together. Posts you've already read show a badge like 2 new when fresh comments arrive. See Comments.
• Pinned posts. Important posts can be pinned to the top of the feed with a Pinned badge, so deadlines and permission slips don't scroll away. See Pinned posts.
• Report a post, or block someone. The three-dot ⋮ menu on any post now offers Report post and Block, with a Blocked Users list on your profile to undo it. See Reporting & blocking.
• Bigger photo galleries. Posts can carry up to 25 photos, with a tidy +12-style tile when there are more than fit.
• Official school posts. Some announcements are now published under the school or district's own name rather than a staff member's.
• Little things: long-press to copy text out of a post or comment, and web links, email addresses, and phone numbers are tappable everywhere.

Schedule posts for later

If you post to a group — as a teacher, coach, group leader, or contributor — the composer's Publish row now lets you write now and publish later. Pick a smart preset like Tomorrow morning, or any half-hour slot up to 90 days out, and the button changes from Post to Schedule.

• Until the time arrives, the post is visible only to you, marked Scheduled for… in your feed.
• It lands at the top of members' feeds — push notification included — right on time, so a reminder written Sunday night can go out Monday at 8 AM.
• Change your mind anytime before it publishes: edit the post to pick a new time, or publish it immediately. Full details in scheduling posts.

In Messages

• Photos in messages. Send up to 4 photos in a conversation — from the camera or your library. See Messages.
• Read receipts. Under your most recent message, Sent becomes Read (with a time) once it's been seen.
• Staff office hours. Teachers and staff can set office hours on their profile. Parents see the hours in the conversation, get a gentle note when writing outside them, and only see Read for messages opened during office hours. Staff can also hold notifications until their next office hours. See Settings.
• Longer messages (up to 4,000 characters), conversations that open at the newest message, and clear errors if a send fails.

Calendar, dining & athletics

• Games on the school calendar. Athletic games now appear on the main calendar and the Today and Tomorrow cards, right alongside everything else that day — with tappable venues for directions. See Calendars.
• Fuller dining menus. Menus show everything the kitchen entered, not just the main dish. See Dining.
• This season only. Sports schedules show the current school year, so last season's games no longer trail behind this one's.

Staff directory

• The whole district in one place. The Staff page now lists every school at once, grouped by location, with filter chips to jump straight to your building and a search box for finding a name. See Resources & Directory.

Groups

• Your groups first. Groups you've joined sort to the top of each section on My Groups, and a search bar appears in districts with lots of groups. See Groups.
• Passcode confirmation. Joining with a passcode now confirms exactly which group you joined.

Your account

• Change your sign-in email yourself, right from your profile. See Settings & Profile.
• Children's names for more account types. Staff and "Other" accounts can now list children too — it helps staff find you in message search and helps group leaders recognize your join requests.
• Smoother sign-in. If you sign up with an email or phone number that already has an account, the app offers to link the two instead of dead-ending — and a stuck email sign-in can switch to a text message with one tap.

badgeFor staff & group leaders

New in the Fall 2026 Update

• Run your group's calendar. If your role has Manage group calendar (owners and leaders do by default), a round + button appears in the bottom-right corner of the Calendar tab — or use New Event in the group's ⋮ menu. Add the event, pick which of your groups it belongs to, and set a Reminder and a Feed post. See Calendars.
• "Week before" is the default announcement. Enter a whole season in one sitting and each event announces itself about a week out — no wall of notifications tonight.
• Also notify. Add other groups you belong to so their members see the event and get the reminder, without giving them the ability to edit it.
• Thirty seconds to change your mind. After you post to a group, an Undo post bar stays on screen and members' notifications wait 30 seconds, so a typo or a wrong group can be caught before anyone's phone buzzes. See fixing a post before people are notified.
• A new event's time follows its day. When you move a new calendar event to another day, the app no longer keeps the time it guessed for today — it asks you to pick one.
• Invitations lead to the app. When you add a leader or contributor by email, the invitation now walks them through signing in to the app with that address — and someone who already uses the app with a phone number can attach the invited email from their profile instead of making a second account. See adding leaders.
• A clearer link check. The composer's Media URL takes one web address. Paste a whole share message by mistake and it now says exactly what's wrong under the field, instead of a generic error. See links in posts.
• Do the heavy work at a desk. Long posts, batches of photos from a camera card, a season of dates, approvals — all of it works in the browser at schoolcourier.app. See On a Computer.

From the August update

• The Contributor role. A middle ground between member and leader: contributors can post and comment, but each submission waits for a leader's approval. It's the recommended role for classroom parents, team parents, and students. See Groups.
• Approvals, in the app. Waiting posts, comments, and join requests arrive as messages with Approve/Deny buttons, and a Pending approvals list sits at the top of My Groups. See reviewing approvals.
• Permission presets. Each role gets one-tap presets — Trusted, Moderated, Read & react — under Edit Group → Member Permissions. See group permissions.
• Pin with a timer. Pin a post for 24 hours to 30 days (or until you unpin it); it quietly drops back into place when time's up. See pinning.
• Manage members from your phone. A full View Members screen — roster by role, search, and a per-person menu to change roles or remove — no laptop needed. See managing members.

shield_personAdministrators: you can now send a mass alert from the app itself (with Text to Speech as the backup for anyone a text can't reach), keep each school's contact details current yourself under Admin → School Info, and rotate up to five banner images in one ad — and the August update added eight new Commander tools and more. See the Admin Help for your side of the release.

← Back to Help Center