Secure messages are private, two-way conversations between your school and parents. Unlike email, the whole thread stays inside TeachHero — parents read and reply in their portal — which makes it the right choice for sensitive topics like billing, behavior, or health.
Note: Secure messaging is included on every plan. See Plans & Pricing.
Start a conversation
- Go to Communication → Secure Messages.
- Click New conversation.
- In To, choose one or more parents. Everyone you add shares the same thread and sees all replies.
- Click Submit. The thread opens with a subject built from the participants' names.
- Write your first message in the message box — you can format it with bold, italics, links, and lists — then click Send.
To rename the thread, click Edit subject at the top of the conversation.
Reply in a conversation
- Open the conversation from the Secure Messages list.
- Type your reply in the message box.
- Click Send.
Opening a conversation marks it as read for you. If you need to fix or remove something you sent, use Edit or Delete under your own message — you can only change messages you wrote.
Note: Secure messages are text only — you can't attach files. To share a file, send it as an email attachment. See Email Attachments.
A contact's page also has a Messages tab listing every conversation they're part of — handy when you're already looking at the parent.
What parents see
Parents find the thread in their portal under Messages → Secure Messages, with a dot marking unread conversations. They can read the full history and reply — but they can't start new conversations. If a parent needs to reach you, start the thread from your side.
Spot unread messages
- The Secure Messages item in the sidebar shows a badge with your unread conversation count.
- In the list, unread conversations are marked with a blue dot, and Last activity shows when the latest message arrived.
Archive a conversation
When a conversation is finished, open it, click Manage, and choose Archive. It moves from the Active tab to the Archived tab — nothing is deleted, and you can bring it back anytime from the Archived tab: open it, click Manage, and choose Unarchive.
Archiving hides the conversation from Active for everyone in it. As soon as anyone sends a new message in the thread, it comes back to Active on its own, so a reply never gets lost in the archive.
Messages in the teacher panel
Teachers use the same threads from the teacher panel, where they're called Messages:
- In the sidebar, click Communication (under Communicate). It opens on Messages, and its badge counts your unread messages.
- Click New message.
- In To, pick the parents to message. You can choose parents of students enrolled in your classes.
- Click Start message, then write your message and click Send.
Replying, editing your own messages, and archiving (under Manage) work the same way as above. Your Home page also shows how many unread messages you have, with a link to read them. When messages are waiting unread, you also get an email that links straight to Messages.