NYC students and parents offered free school-based email accounts

K-12 learning technology company ePals will provide its secure web-hosted SchoolMail service to the New York City Department of Education at no cost for five years beginning in the 2010-2011 school year.

NEW YORK, July 15, 2010 --  ePals, a K-12 education technology company, announced today that it will provide a safe, secure and customizable email solution to the New York City Department of Education (DOE) that will be available to the city's approximately 2 million students and parents. This will help schools create online communities connecting students, parents, teachers, and school leaders. Participating schools will also have access to the ePals Global Community, allowing them to collaborate with classrooms throughout the world.

ePals will provide its SchoolMail product to New York City at no cost for five years beginning in the 2010-2011 school year. The service will be offered without advertising to students, and with sponsor messages to adults.

For the first time, the New York City DOE will provide every parent with an email account. Parents would be able to interact with their children's teachers, receive communications from their schools and the DOE regarding school events and their children's progress in class, and communicate with their children about schoolwork. SchoolMail features instant translation into 58 languages -- an important capability given that more than 40 percent of the city's students report speaking a language other than English at home.

ePals SchoolMail is hosted on the Web, integrating technologies from Microsoft Live@edu, so the district does not need to maintain software, hardware or server side technology for the deployment. This cloud-based solution is estimated to avoid the district spending up to $5 million annually on infrastructure to host email for students, teachers and parents.

"This partnership will create an additional channel through which schools can communicate with families about how to get more involved in their school communities and academic programs," said Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. "Our children always do better when their families are invested in their education."

"Expediting student-teacher-parent communication and workflow is necessary for 21st century schools and in building a community of collaborative learners in the digital era," said Tim DiScipio, co-founder of ePals.

"Email has become the predominant form of writing and communicating in the 21st century, especially as it pertains to critical thinking and thoughtful expression," said Donald J. Leu, Ph.D., director of New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut. "More information is communicated today by email than by text messaging and or other social media. Districts, schools and teachers must integrate email into the writing and content curriculum to effectively prepare students in powerful ways for their college and workplace futures in a world of electronic information and communication."

According to ePals, participating schools will be able to provide electronic communications capabilities to their students and other stakeholders with the assurance that the system is safe and secure, compliant with District policies, and filtered in accordance with specified controls. Students will be able to receive school or homework instructions, port their work between school and home, collaborate with classmates, turn in assignments or apply to college. For example, a third grade student in Manhattan could communicate with other third graders in his or her classroom or school, with his or her teacher and parents, but not with high school kids.

The New York City Department of Education is the largest system of public schools in the United States, serving about 1.1 million students in over 1,600 schools. ePals learning technology is used by more than 600,000 educators and reaches more than 25 million students and parents in 200 counties and territories.

For more information visit www.Schools.nyc.gov and www.ePals.com.