Imagine this: walking into class on a Monday morning, half-asleep and disoriented from your early and stressful commute. You finally have a moment to slow down when you sit in your desk with a few minutes to spare before class. Then, your teacher comes into the room and announces to the class to take out the homework that was assigned over the weekend. Your moment of relief is quickly ruined when you realize that you forgot to do your homework. Now you’re left scrambling, trying to fill out the worksheet as fast as you can, and this morning just got a whole lot more stressful. Sound familiar? Chances are most students have been stuck in a similar situation at least once. However, this problem has been avoided many times due to the Remind app. 

If you’re not familiar with the app, Remind allows teachers to send important messages and reminders regarding homework and tests directly to students cell phones. With over 20 million active monthly users in the United States, many teachers, students, and parents depend on the app to keep them updated.

So when Verizon announced that starting February 1st it would be charging a fee to Verizon users, there was a large backlash from the education community. Educators from across the nation were quick to bring attention to the unfair fee and started #ReversetheFee on Twitter. Meanwhile, others were searching for another form of communication that would be as effective as Remind, but struggled to come up with alternative solutions. Even multiple teachers from Muskego were shocked by Verizon’s actions and weren’t sure how else they could efficiently communicate with students.

Mrs. Hirtz shared, “I use Remind with my English 9 and 10 classes. I also use it to inform students that I don’t have in class about Warrior’s 101 and Warriors Word meeting dates and locations.”

It turned out that Verizon was not going to place the fee on Remind users, but Twilio, the company Remind uses to send out mass texts through a 5 or 6 digit number. Verizon was recognizing the messages as spam texts, since they were being sent in large amounts through short phone numbers, like most mass spam texts. Imposing this fee would have dramatically impacted business for Remind, and possibly even forced Remind to remove its free account option.

After all the criticism, Verizon finally decided to waive the fee and is now working on creating an agreement with Remind and Twilio. As a result, teachers are celebrating around the nation and students are continuing to receive reminders about their assignments.