General

• The St. Nicholas Church School is a ministry of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

• The following are guidelines for email communications sent to and from our Church School.

Church School Email Address

• All Church School official communications should use the address:

"St. Nicholas Church School Ann Arbor Michigan" <churchschoolaa[at]gmail.com>

• Emails sent to the above address are received only by the Church School directors (typically, two persons).

• Only the Church School directors can send email from the above email address.

• Church School email sent to all families is sent "To:" the above address and "Bcc:" to the families (see example below).

Family Email Addresses and Confidentiality

• • The St. Nicholas Church School does NOT communicate directly with its students through email.

  • When parents register their children for Church School, they provide a family email address (which is usually that of a parent). This is the only address that Church School uses to send email to families.

  • It is the responsibility of the parents to inform their children about email communications received from Church School.

  • The email addresses of all Church School families are confidential and should be hidden in all emails sent by the Church School directors or teachers (see below).

How Email from Church School should be Addressed

Typical Email from Church School to all Families and Staff

From: St. Nicholas Church School Ann Arbor Michigan <churchschoolaa@gmail.com>

To: St. Nicholas Church School Ann Arbor Michigan <churchschoolaa@gmail.com>

Bcc: family1@isp1.com, family2@isp2.com, ..., teacher1@isp1.com, teacher2@isp2.com, ..., staff1@isp1.com, staff2@isp2.com, ...

Subject: St. Nicholas Church School: <specific topic goes here>

Dear Church School Families,

[email message text...]

How it works:

• • The field "Bcc:" stands for "Blind Carbon Copy" and serves to send email to all the addresses listed after the "Bcc:" without revealing them in the email that is actually sent.

• Only the email addresses listed in the "To:" and "Cc:" fields can be seen by the email recipients.

• Email recipients do not know the number and email addresses of the other email recipients listed in the "Bcc:" field.

How Email from Church School Teachers to the Student Families in their Classroom should be Addressed

Example Email from the Teachers to the families in the 4th and 5th Grade Classroom

From: Jane Doe "jane.doe@gmail.com"

To: St. Nicholas Church School Ann Arbor Michigan <churchschoolaa@gmail.com>

Cc: Other teachers in the classroom

Bcc: family451@isp1.com, family452@isp2.com, family453@isp3.com,...

Subject: St. Nicholas Church School, 4th-5th Grades: <specific topic goes here>

Dear 4th and 5th Grade Church School Families,

[email message text...]

• Church School teachers are provided with the family email addresses for the students in their classroom.

• This allows teachers to communicate with the families of their students (always through the parents).

• Teachers should also use the above "Bcc:" approach when sending email to the families in their classroom.

Avoiding Email Spam

• Using the "Bcc:" field also protects the email addresses of Church School families against email "spam".

  • It safeguards the recipients of mass-email from clicking the "Reply All" button (deliberately or accidentally) and sending an email to everyone whose address is visible in the original email. (This often starts a wave of emails "sent to all" each of which complains about the flood of emails.)