School supplied parent email addresses: Anyone doing it?

Currently all of our staff and students have webmail addresses supplied by the school. I often email parents with concerns about students but am sometimes frustrated that our system does not have up to date records of their email addresses.
I think that a school supplied address would make communication easier (especially if it came with easy to follow forwarding instructions)
It would also make it easier to join the parents up to our Moodle so that they can get an overview of what their kids are doing.
Teacher addresses are currently first_last@schoolname.edu.hk
Students are first_last@student.schoolname.edu.hk
Parents could be first_last@parent.schoolname.edu.hk but I am not sure about the ramifications of them having .edu email addresses, perhaps even a gmail etc address would be better eg first_last_schoolname@gmail.com

Is anyone doing this>? Any pitfalls or problems that anyone can see.?