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Communicating about Goals and Roles |
- School Community Compact and Self-rating Forms—Find tools to develop a compact that clearly communicates roles and responsibilities of students, teachers, and parents in achieving student success then use the self-rating form to gain feedback on how well each of the roles is being met as outlined in your school’s compact.
Communicating about the Compact (8 minutes)
- Homework Guidelines and Monitoring—Use these tips and tools to develop homework standards and communicate the roles that parents, students, and teachers play in meeting them. The homework monitoring tools help assess how well your homework guidelines are being carried out, and how well each party is fulfilling their responsibility as described in your homework guidelines.
Communicating about Homework Guidelines (3 minutes)
- Learning Standards—It is important that parents understand these benchmarks and how they relate to the lesson plans and student assessments in order to understand how they might reinforce learning at home, and recognize when extra help might be needed. Use these ideas for communicating the significance of learning standards to families and to engage them in conversations about learning.
Learning Standards and Assessments (7 minutes)
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School-Home Communication
Home to School Communication (12 minutes)
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- Information Technology—School websites and web-based student reporting systems are convenient ways to communicate with families at times that are most convenient for school staff and this digital communication also allow families to stay informed and respond as their work schedules permit from any location. Use the ideas here to help guide your digital communication with the families you serve.
- Teacher to Parent Phone Calls—This form of direct communication ensures that families receive important information in a timely way. The tools in this section provide teachers with checklists and guides that ensure information is consistent from family to family and serve to preserve the details of the call for future reference.
- Passing Notes—Many teachers find written notes to be a convenient way of communicating with families on a personal level and frequently prompt a reply. Many occasions are suitable for hand-written communication and we have a number of ideas and tips to be certain your notes get noticed.
- Newsletters—School newsletters are a great way to keep families informed on what’s happening at your school and a source of tips for parents on what they can do to support learning at home. Use these tips and ideas to guide your newsletters content and generate interest in what’s happening at school.
- Parent Bulletin Boards—Typically the bulletin board is considered to be more of an information source than a communication device. Use our tips and ideas to discover how your school bulletin board can spark interactions between families and with the school staff.
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Parent-Child Interactions
Parent-Child Interaction (5 minutes)
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Nothing we do is more important than encouraging interactions between parents and their children that focus on learning. Families interacting with their children at home in ways that support learning at school is the most important form of parental involvement. Use these ideas and tips at your school to promote parent-child interactions.
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More Communication Resources |
| Increasingly diverse student populations call for positive synergies within the school community that work to fuel student success. Use these tips and ideas to help open communication channels that build relationships and promote positive partnerships.
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