Verizon and Remind, a popular app for schools and students to communicate, are at an impasse, after several attempts at negotiations, over a newly imposed fee, which led to pushback from parents and teachers on social media.

At issue is a fee Verizon recently added in an effort to curtail spam. Verizon says it has offered to rescind the fee but that Remind has rejected the offer, saying the company is "holding children hostage" in the process. Remind says no deal is actually in place.

Typically, unless a school district has a premium plan, using the app is free to send and receive messages, which Remind funnels through communications service Twilio. But due to this new fee from Verizon on groups like Twilio that is intended to halt spam, Remind would have had to pay around 11 times of what it pays today — from several hundred thousand dollars a year to several million.

"We want nothing more than to ensure that parents, teachers, and students will receive text messages in a time of need," Richard Young, a director of corporate communications at Verizon, told USA TODAY. "Educators and families should not worry if they will be notified if there is an issue at a school. We have said clearly that we will offer this service for free. We encourage Remind to accept the offer."

However, Remind CEO Brian Grey said that Verizon "has not signed any agreement with his company to ensure that fees will be waived for all users of our free service" and that Remind will instead be charged "millions of dollars each year" by Verizon starting on Feb. 1.

"When we’re assured that a long-term deal is in place to guarantee that all the educators, parents and students currently using our free service can use SMS on the Verizon network without fees, we will be thrilled to continue our service without disruption," Grey said.

Remind, founded in 2011, is a private messaging platform with about 31 million monthly users in schools nationwide that allows students, teachers, administrations and parents to communicate with one another about assignments and announcements.

Grey previously told USA TODAY that his company would not be able to afford to pay that new fee. Because of this, Verizon customers who use the free Remind service will not be able to receive or send text messages starting Jan. 28. More than 7 million of Remind's users are on Verizon plans.

"As a startup company that’s in the education space, there’s no way that we can support that incremental cost,” Grey said.

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Currently, Remind can be accessed on any type of phone through text messaging, the Remind app and email. But with the discontinuation of Remind text messaging for Verizon, only phones with email and/or apps would be able to continue using the service. Grey said this move will disproportionately affect lower-income users who might not have smartphones, data plans and/or broadband at home.

"There are going to be so many people that need this communication and need this connection to their school communities that are going to have it severed by this increased fee that Verizon is imposing,” Grey said.

In a note posted on Remind's website, the company is encouraging users to contact Verizon.

"Please take a few minutes to ask Verizon to reverse the fee impacting text messaging on Remind," the company said in the post.

Remind users have responded to the call. With the hashtag #ReverseTheFee, thousands have petitioned Verizon online through various social platforms.

Follow USA TODAY intern Ben Tobin on Twitter: @TobinBen