Hiroshima Eichi Gakuen Junior and Senior High School Interview

02/01/2022Interview

Hiroshima Prefectural Hiroshima Eichi Gakuen Junior and Senior High School has been interviewed.

Participants in the interview include -

President： Mr. NakataniVice President： Mr. TakadaIT Support Team： Mr. KohanawaIT Support Team： Mr. NabekaIT Support Team： Mr. Ishihara

Hiroshima Prefectural Hiroshima Eichi Gakuen Junior and Senior High School PTA 画像

Greetings

I am Goda, representative of Miley's Inc. In this interview, we will proceed with the following objectives: 1. To organize case studies of Miley PTA implementation for those considering adoption. 2. To provide an opportunity to reflect on the implementation at your school and make it easier to convey achievements, reflections, and challenges to future generations. 3. To confirm the popular aspects of Miley PTA and areas requiring improvement (feel free to share anything) and use them for future improvements.

Thank you very much for gathering despite your busy schedules. Mr. Nakatani and I have exchanged emails many times, but this is the first time we meet in person (laughs)

School Information

First, please tell us about the school. Are there any unique characteristics of the school?

The school recruits students from across Japan. We plan to accept international students in the future. This is the school's third year, and high school students will join starting in April.

Since parents are distributed nationwide, it must be difficult to meet and discuss in person. This means you need communication tools regardless of distance, right?

Yes, that's right.

Although I already know the answer (laughs), please tell me about the PTA organization and activities.

PTA Organization and Activities

Since it's the school's third year, the PTA is still in a trial phase and we're considering what to do going forward.

Currently, we have both junior and senior high school students, so we're trying a combined junior-senior high school PTA structure this year.

I understand there is an IT Support Team within the PTA. Could you tell us about that?

IT Support Team

Since we're implementing a tool, someone needs to manage it, and it's difficult unless you know something about tools, so we thought we should organize that area. Also, we might need to provide support for parents who aren't familiar with such tools.

That's right. Actually, apart from the executive roles of "President," "Vice President," and "Auditor," we haven't established other positions this year. Instead, we're organizing the PTA in the form of teams. We're starting to gather people when needed or create teams based on their areas of expertise.

Are all of you hardcore engineers? Sorry, it's hard to say "I'm a hardcore engineer!" about yourself (laughs)

There are only two real engineers. Others who are somewhat familiar with computers, can use tools, or can use Google Forms can also contribute significantly to support.

Since Mr. Nakatani often brings up technical topics, I sometimes get carried away with technical discussions (laughs) I'm also an engineer. I used to work on embedded systems, but got bored with that and now work on web and apps. I love engineer talk, so feel free to bring up anything.

Background of Implementation

Let's talk about the background of implementation. Since it's a new school, there may not be many issues, but I think there were some challenges you wanted to solve. For example, paper-based operations being difficult, time-consuming, and costly.

The challenge is that parents are located nationwide, so they can't easily gather at the school. Additionally, with COVID-19, it has become very difficult to distribute materials for general meetings and other events to distant locations.

Therefore, we realized we needed to implement some kind of tool and started evaluation last year. We decided to try implementing Miley based on cost and functionality.

How Did You Find the Free Trial?

How did you find Miley?

I searched for "PTA tool" and looked at everything that came up. I looked at Slack, BAND, Kintone's Garoon, etc., but many had restrictions around 100 users.

Slack gave the impression that it would be a bit difficult for average parents to use, and setting it up on smartphones and computers seemed quite difficult, so I thought we might not be able to support many parents.

I really thought that Miley seemed to be something that even people who don't understand computers well could implement, so I asked everyone for their opinions.

We also considered using Facebook groups, but... Since personal private information is posted on Facebook, people could easily reach individual pages from the PTA group, and some people wouldn't want to be seen.

With Miley, school and PTA relationships are completed within Miley, which I think is also a reason we chose it.

Implementation Status

I believe you started with the free trial during implementation. Were there any difficulties in fitting the PTA organization and activities into Miley?

Group-Specific Chat Rooms

I'm doing all the talking (laughs) The "Group-Specific Chat Room" feature didn't exist initially, so every day as parents registered, I had to manually add them to the parent chat room. This was very difficult at first.

Now that the "Group-Specific Chat Room" feature exists, registering chat rooms has become easier.

However, with "Group-Specific Chat Rooms," you can only create one per group, so it's troublesome when you want to separate chat rooms by content. Since parent groups aren't used that much, it's not immediately necessary, but it would be easier to manage if we could create multiple group-specific chat rooms per group.

We developed the group-specific chat room feature based on your request. It was very difficult to develop, but I think it was worth doing.

Initially, Miley was launched as a contact network app, so the chat function was treated as an add-on.

After that, requests related to chat have been increasing a lot. We've realized that everyone wants to use chat, and we're continuing to improve it. We will also consider allowing multiple group-specific chat rooms per group.

Since what is written in chat rooms serves as knowledge (information and insights), it's easy to tell new officers "please look here," so I think chat rooms are important.

Reasons for Not Using LINE

The reason we didn't use LINE is that people who join LINE chat groups later can't see previous history, so they can't see what process previous officers went through. That's why we couldn't commit to LINE.

With LINE, nicknames can be crazy too. When you enter a group chat, everyone is "Papa" or "Mama" (laughs)

Using Zoom Too

If you have any other difficulties, we might be able to help solve them.

For example, what's common in elementary schools is assigning flag duty or patrol duty. In some places, there are about 70 districts to assign, and they need to decide weekly assignments. We developed the "Adjustment-chan" feature to coordinate such complex assignments.

Currently, we have one Zoom account contracted for the PTA, and we're trying to use "Reservation-chan" effectively for operations.

As an aside, I think Zoom usage fees are expensive, so we're considering adding a Zoom-like feature that can be easily used within Miley. How often do you use Zoom?

It's hardly used yet. We use it within the executive board and IT Support Team.

After Implementation

Some time has passed since implementation. To what extent have you achieved the challenges you wanted to solve before implementation?

I think we have achieved it to some extent.

First, announcements. Before implementing Miley, when issuing announcements from the PTA, we had to request the school to send them via email through the school. Now, using Miley, announcements from the PTA can be issued within the PTA. The read rate for announcements is quite high.

Chat rooms are being used in various ways. We also use chat rooms to coordinate carpooling when students return home.

Paper Has Been Reduced

I ask everyone during interviews about quantitative effects (measurable results). At schools I interviewed earlier, they mentioned "printing costs were 150,000 yen per year, but we were able to reduce them significantly" because paper was reduced.

We don't distribute anything via the PTA anymore. I don't know the exact amount because we have the school handle accounting, but I think we've reduced paper costs and postage stamp costs considerably.

That's because there are many distant parents. Since paper distribution and mailing have been eliminated, there seem to be significant cost benefits.

Other Improvements

I'll supplement what Mr. Nakatani mentioned about the "carpooling coordination room" chat room.

The school is on an island, and transportation is not convenient once you arrive on the island. Therefore, parents bring cars via ferry, and by coordinating carpools, we can reduce the number of cars entering the island.

Although we don't have specific statistics, I think we are seeing an effect of reducing cars entering the island. This also contributes to eco-friendly activities that are good for the earth.

The school was just established, with 40 students per grade for 3 grades, totaling 120 students, but the number will eventually increase to about 300 students. When that happens, if each parent individually brings cars to the island, there's a risk of complaints from the mainland port.

There was a complaint recently, so to prevent such things, if the use of Miley's chat function for "carpooling coordination rooms" spreads throughout the school, where parents consult with each other about picking up and dropping off children, I think it will have a tremendous effect.

Ferry fees are quite expensive, about 4,000 yen round trip for a regular car. If they carpool, it can reduce the financial burden on parents.

I'm happy that we're being helpful. If there's anything else we can help with, please feel free to consult with us.

Having a PTA Communication Tool

Previously, announcements from the PTA were distributed via email through the school. Now we can send directly from the PTA using Miley, which has saved quite a bit of time.

Is there a step where the school checks the content of announcements?

For things that are only within the PTA, we don't. I don't think there's a confirmation process.

Sharing PTA and School Meeting Content

Additionally, we create minutes of meetings between the school and PTA, have the school confirm them, and then share them with parents.

By publishing the minutes, individual inquiries from parents to the school have decreased, which I think has reduced the burden on the school's teachers. Until then, there were many individual inquiries from parents, and the school was really troubled by it.

Then we want the school to use it too (laughs)

Yes (laughs) The school is still somewhat reluctant about digitalization, so we plan to bring them in over time.

Qualitative Changes

What about qualitative changes? Even vague things that can't be quantified, like "it seems like there are more smiles."

Well, I think trust in the executive board has increased (laughs) I feel that parents have become more cooperative.

For any activity, we now send out surveys from Miley first, asking "What do you think about doing this?" to hear opinions, so we've been able to receive very positive feedback.

Previously, the executive board would decide everything, but we've changed it all to a survey format. The burden on the executive board has increased slightly though.

Surveys are indeed important. At schools I interviewed earlier, they mentioned that using surveys increased the number of collaborators, and more people became interested because they could express their opinions.

We also created a suggestion box. There was feedback that it's difficult to speak up in chat rooms, but people still want to express opinions, so we initially created it with Google Forms. If Miley had a function that could do something like a suggestion box, everything could be completed within Miley.

It's a bit different from a suggestion box, but are you aware of the "Contact Administrator" feature?

It seems many people don't notice it. About two people found "Contact Administrator" and contacted us. I think people who can find it will find it, but if it were in a more prominent position, it would be easier to use.

Understood. We'll consider improvements to the display and such.

Are there any other qualitative changes? Like teachers seeming kinder (laughs)

Teachers have started making requests like "Could you send this through Miley?" I think they should use Miley at school then (laughs) But I think they're starting to recognize Miley's existence.

Then the school might start using it soon (laughs) I'd be happy if we could have a positive influence on the school side too.

Succession to Next Year

One of the troublesome things about PTAs is the term of office for board members. I sometimes hear that IT tools were implemented, but the next board members weren't very favorable toward IT tools, so things went back to the old ways.

How do you plan to handle succession going forward?

We're thinking that new executive board members can use the new year's executive chat room while also joining the previous year's executive chat room to see how their predecessors did things, which would serve as succession.

Meeting in person for succession would be difficult, and we don't yet know if there's enough content to warrant talking on Zoom for succession.

What about succession manuals, which are often mentioned?

Things have finally taken shape over these three years, so we don't have succession materials yet.

Requests and Improvements

Now let's move on to the phase everyone has been waiting for: hearing your requests and improvement suggestions.

Is "Mention" the Right Term for Chat?

I'm one of the few engineers, and I think the chat reply functionality could be made more user-friendly. Also, engineers understand the term "mention," but I wonder if it gets through to general parents.

We debated whether to use a different term for "mention." This type of functionality is used globally in tools like Jira and Confluence, and "mention" is the common term worldwide, so we kept it as mention. It's a feature that those who use it will use it, and there are people who are using mentions.

Want to Send Files in Chat Rooms

Also, I think it would be good if we could just drop files in chat.

Technically, it's easy to enable file uploading, but... If misused, cloud storage costs could reach unacceptable levels, so we've deliberately disabled it.

Cloud storage costs are rising globally, so we're in a "storage is money" situation. If large files or videos are posted, the current usage fees wouldn't cover it and we could end up in the red.

Our goal is to provide services at low prices, so this is a "we could do it but deliberately don't" issue. As a compromise, files stored in the file storage area can be attached.

Display Own Name When Replying

When replying in chat, my own reply doesn't display my name, so it would be better if it was displayed. Because it looks like it's continuing from the previous message.

You're saying that when replies continue, only your own reply doesn't show a name, making it hard to read. Understood. We'll fix that in a future update. (Implemented in ver 4.0.0)

Message Search in Chat Rooms

Can you search chat messages? If we're using chat room history as succession material as Mr. Nakatani mentioned, it would be better to be able to search.

Currently, there is no chat room message search function. We'll consider implementing it in a future update.

Reduce Input During Registration

If profile registration, which currently requires entering school ID and passphrase, could be done with URL links or QR codes, registration would be easier. I think it's better if there are fewer steps for user registration.

I think reducing the information users need to input is important, so we'll consider using QR codes. We'll consider implementing it in a future update.

Some people have entered the school ID as their profile name, and it's stayed that way, which is troublesome.

Administrator users can contact that person via "Direct Message."

PC Screen Is Too Wide

When viewing Miley on a computer with the screen fully open, chat room messages are displayed separated on the left and right, which is hard to read.

I escape with the technical excuse that it's "the limits of mobile-first responsive design" (laughs) With responsive design, the display stretches or shrinks horizontally according to the device's screen width, but on wide computer screens, it stretches too much left and right, giving an overstretched impression.

For wide computer screen displays, we should change to an appropriate separate layout, but we haven't been able to handle it due to lack of development resources. As development settles down in the future, we'll gradually address areas we haven't been able to touch like this.

It becomes easier to view if you narrow the browser width.

Membership Fee Collection

Also, I wanted to ask how you collect PTA membership fees.

We've received many requests to support fee collection, so we're conducting interviews. Many places are still struggling with collecting fees in envelopes or needing reconciliation processes even with bank transfers.

PTA membership fee collection is entrusted to the school along with school expenses. We do it that way because many parents are from distant locations.

We had a lot of discussion last year about whether having the school do it is good or not... But the PTA can't handle it yet, so for now we're having the school handle it as entrusted work.

Want Notifications for Profile Registration and Deletion

Also, when new students join and everyone registers their profiles one after another, I'd like notifications when they register.

I'm really worried about whether group settings and such are being done properly, so I was frequently checking registration status, but I can't keep watching all the time, so it would be helpful to be notified by email.

For example, if someone mistakenly registers in the executive board group or something, we need to correct that, so it would be good to have notifications.

Also, it would be good to have notifications when someone withdraws. We need to take alternative communication means for people who have withdrawn from Miley, so I'd like to keep it in the back of my mind.

So you want notifications at the timing of profile registration or deletion. It would be easy to send emails, but in today's world there are many restrictions on email sending, and if we send too many emails, there's a risk of being treated as a spam operator, so we're keeping email sending to a minimum.

Depending on the device, character limits can be strict, but sending via smartphone notifications is easier.

With notifications, you won't know if you miss them, right? Since I use multiple devices like PC and smartphone, there's a high possibility of missing notifications. It would be good if we could be notified by email at least for profile additions and deletions.

Notifications for things with substance, like posts to the contact network, are fine, but notifications for things without substance can be missed or lost if you dismiss the notification.

May I say something? I'm a first-year parent, and there was trouble during registration last year—I was receiving notifications but wasn't in the parent chat room, and after making inquiries, I must have seemed knowledgeable, so I was put into the IT Support Team (laughs)

Among the parents, there were people who weren't in the group-specific chat rooms, or who had mistakenly left groups. Mr. Nakatani is always taking care of such things, and I'd like to reduce Mr. Nakatani's burden.

New students will be joining again, so I think this will be an important feature. I'd appreciate your consideration.

Also, there are chat rooms for each class. My class had no one posting at all, so I thought maybe no one was looking, but at the end of the year, a student went out to play and didn't come back, causing a commotion about whether they were missing.

That's when the class chat room became very active. I thought no one was looking, but I realized everyone was actually watching. It was helpful in that sense, and the whole class was worried, but for situations like that, it's important that group settings are appropriate and that people are properly in group-specific chat rooms.

Understood. We'll consider implementation methods.

Until then, I'll export the user list and check if there's anyone who doesn't belong to any group.

Reply Display Gets in the Way

When replying in chat, the reply display overlaps the text input field. Can something be done about this?

That toast (message screen that floats up from the bottom) is displayed to communicate "please enter your reply message here."

It overlaps the input field and is displayed for a long time, so I can't start typing text right away.

Changing the display position is difficult, but we can shorten the display time, so we'll handle that. (Implemented the next day in ver 3.9.1)

Want a Mark All as Read Button

Also, I use both smartphone and computer. When I use one for a while and then log into the other, posts that had been marked as read appear as unread.

Marking them read one by one is tedious, so could there be a way to mark all as read at once?

We need a mark all as read button or something like that. We'll consider it. (Implemented in ver 4.0.0)

Want to Share Safety Confirmation Comments

I think I requested this before, but... I'd like to request the ability to publish safety confirmation comments.

During previous safety confirmations, everyone provided many wonderful comments, so I'd like to be able to open and share the comment content among parents.

When earthquakes occur, we send out safety confirmations, and everyone responds with comments.

Since we have parents all over the country, we send safety confirmations whenever an earthquake occurs somewhere, and we receive such warm comments, but I'd like to share them with everyone rather than just me and the administrators seeing them.

You requested this quite a while ago. We haven't been able to handle it yet, so we'll address it in a future update. (Implemented in ver 4.0.0)

Thank you very much for your cooperation in this interview despite your busy schedules.