Assessments / SRSS-IE
Emailing Teachers
Overview
Teacher communication is the step districts most often underinvest in, and it is the step that most determines completion rate. Teachers are not logging in to a system they already use — they are opening a link in an email. If that email is unclear, gets filtered, or arrives at the wrong time, the screening stalls.
Emails are sent by your district IT office, not by Standard Education. An internal sender address is more likely to reach the inbox and more likely to be trusted.
Download the official template
Standard Education supplies a ready-to-adapt kickoff email: SRSS Email to teacher TEMPLATE.docx. It is reproduced below with the district-specific parts marked. The other emails in the sequence are optional and have no official template.
The Email Sequence
| When to send | Purpose | |
|---|---|---|
| Heads-up | ~1 week before the window opens | Tell teachers this is coming so the link email is not a surprise |
| Kickoff | Day the window opens | Deliver the screening link and instructions |
| Mid-window reminder | Roughly halfway through | Nudge teachers who have not started |
| Last call | 2–3 days before the window closes | Name the deadline plainly |
The heads-up and mid-window reminder are optional. The kickoff email is not — it is the only way teachers receive their link.
1. Heads-Up Email
Sent by district leadership rather than IT, this email frames why the screening is happening. Keep it short.
- What SRSS-IE is and why the district is screening
- When the window opens and closes
- Roughly how long it takes per student
- That a link is coming from IT, and to watch for it
- Your district's opt-out policy
2. Kickoff Email
This is the one that matters, and the one Standard Education provides a template for. Each teacher must receive their own link — see Teacher Links and Access.
It needs to contain:
- The teacher's unique screening link
- The date teachers should enter results
- An instruction to verify their name, grade level, and student roster on arrival
- A note that parent opt-out students appear grayed out in their list
- Your district's late-enrollment opt-out rule, including the enrollment cut-off date
- A warning not to forward or share the link
- Who to contact if they cannot get in
One link per teacher
Send each teacher only their own link. A forwarded or shared link loads the wrong teacher's student list. If you are mail-merging, verify the merge on a handful of rows before sending to the full staff list.
The template
Replace everything in brackets. The original is available as a Word document: SRSS Email to teacher TEMPLATE.docx.
Good morning [TEACHER GROUP],
Included in this email is a link to your SRSS-IE dashboard, where you will input your student results on [DATE]. Once you are in your dashboard, please verify your name, grade level, and your student roster. You should see all students on your homeroom roster inside the SRSS-IE dashboard. Students that have a parent opt-out on file will appear in your list but will be grayed out.
Each student will have an additional selection available on their screener dashboard. This option is for late enrollment opt out students only. Please only select this option if both statements below are true:
- The student enrolled in [DISTRICT NAME] after [SRSS CUT-OFF DATE]; and
- The counselor has received a letter from the parent asking for their student to not participate
[LINK TO SRSS-IE DASHBOARD FOR THIS TEACHER]
Each email link is personalized. Please do not forward or share email links. If you do have trouble accessing your data dashboard, please contact [DISTRICT FOCAL PERSON].
Thanks,
Fill in the two bracketed dates carefully
The template's late-enrollment rule depends on your district's enrollment cut-off date, and the two conditions are meant to be read together — a student must have enrolled after the cut-off and have a parent letter on file. Teachers apply this rule on their own, so vague wording here produces inconsistent opt-outs across buildings.
3. Mid-Window Reminder
Send only to teachers who have not finished, using the completion dashboard to build the list — see Monitoring Completion. Reminding teachers who already completed their screenings erodes attention for the reminders that matter.
Repeat the link, repeat the deadline, keep it to a few lines.
4. Last Call
Sent 2–3 days before the window closes, again only to teachers who have not finished. State the deadline plainly and name who to contact if something is blocking them — a missing link, a student who is not on their list, a class that was reassigned.
Practical Notes
- Avoid Monday morning and Friday afternoon for the kickoff email.
- Warn IT about volume. A district-wide send to every teacher at once can trip outbound rate limits or spam heuristics.
- Give principals the building-level view. Completion tends to move faster when a building leader is asking than when a district email is.