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Currently, I would say that I do not go above and beyond with parent communication. For the most part, I will contact home via email if a student has behavioral issues, or is performing excellently in class. I will call home for more serious offenses or concerning academic patterns. As far as sharing the going-ons of my classroom, I am definitely lacking. For the most part, parents get a look of what we will be covering in class at the beginning of the school year, and 10 minute update during parent teacher conferences, but that is about it.

After reflecting, there is a great need for me to provide new avenues for families to peer into. Social media can be a great avenue to reach the broader community. I think it would be cool to use our schools social media platform accounts to share individual projects and cool activities that are going on in the classroom. This can also benefit, by exciting younger students who may take the class in the future.

I also liked the idea of a blog, or some sort of platform where parents can check in on updates. I imagine a monthly video highlighting some of the work we have done in Economics would be a hit with parents. It can highlight topics learned, student achievement, or class progress on some of the various projects in class.

-Nate Spreitzer

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As a high school teacher I don't have as much communication with my parents as some other age groups might. My students are juniors and I preach that they should be the ones addressing me if they need to vouch for themselves. I have an open door policy and allow students to come to me with problems they may be having or if they need more help.

I do have open communication with parents that I feel I do need to reach out too. I do this primarily through email. I have families come in during parent teacher conferences as well where we can talk about their child.

Outside of the classroom, I do communicate with my basketball players via the Remind app. This works really well and has the interface almost of texting. It is nice to send last minute reminders about games or changes to schedules. Parents can also text back if they have questions or need to let us know about anything.

I feel that my communication can be better with parents. It is hard at times to reach out when we have so many things to do during the day. I do still feel that the best thing for my students is for them to advocate for themselves and learn when they need to reach out to address things.

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Emily Padilla

As an elementary EL teacher, I don't use a newsletter to communicate with families. However, I use email and an app called Talking Points. Talking Points is an auto-translating messaging app that allows me to have back and forth conversations with multilingual families. I really enjoy using this app because I am able to communicate with families without worrying about language being a barrier. The app allows me to create a class list year after year and to choose which language I would like my message to be translated into. Additionally, families can choose whether to receive messages as a text or through the mobile app. Other great features are that users can share images and videos via the app. Teachers can also send announcements if needed.

As I reflect on the resources in this module, I think my communication with families can improve. Many times, school event flyers are not translated when sent home. I can use Google docs, which has a translating doc tool, to recreate school event flyers in the family's native language. I can also use Talking Points to share about the event. I've refrained from doing so because our school uses S'Mores, which also has a translating tool feature that families can use. In addition, based on what I learned about classroom newsletters, I can review our current classroom newsletters and share with teachers some tips on how to improve/redesign them given that many have expressed that they feel their newsletters are not being read.

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I don't communicate with families on a regular basis - it's just not something we do at the high school level. Doesn't mean there's no communication at all - it's just not on a regular basis. Part of that is because they receive a lot of communication from the school about various events or things happening. If I do have to reach out, it's easy for me to send an email through our SIS system - that can be sent to all students and/or all parents. I will reach out to parents at the beginning of the school year to inform them of where they can view their students work and other information about the class, such as deadlines, dual credit, assignments, etc. We can see how many of them open that email and it's usually about 60% of them will view that email. During the school year, I will reach out to parents if there is an issue or concern with their child. But most of my communication is done with the students and is done during our class time.

Communication regarding our program is also done via social media and we encourage parents to follow us so they can see some of the things we do on a daily basis.

In terms of changing how we communicate...don't think we will. We try to not overwhelm parents, so we communicate with them when necessary. They also know that if they have any questions, they are free to email me at any time.

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Jennifer McGinnis

Being in the library, I do not connect with my families on a regular basis. When I do communicate with them, it is usually through an email, FB post or a note home with the student. During COVID, I used S'more to send out a quarterly newsletter to the middle school students with library happenings. It would be sent out to their email, which I found they very rarely checked. At the primary level, classroom teachers send out Friday newsletters and add any library items that I mention during their library time during that week.

I could definitely improve on my communication to families in all 3 school buildings. This would benefit the library and myself by sharing our library happenings and promoting all of the programs that the library offers. Currently FB serves that role for me and probably is just as successful, but a newsletter through S'more would be more personal if I could get them all to open their email and read it. I have found that quick bullets and spotlights on key items are about all they take them time to read.

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I do not connect with my students' families via Internet apps, but the district I work for uses X. Facebook and emails to convey messages. I do most of my messaging through Google Classroom, and when there is a concern, I do it via email. My school sends out a daily email with information each family may need for that day. I have worked for a district that sent out a monthly newsletter that sometimes reached 15 to 18 pages. At that school, I have seen many times where students have thrown out the newsletter or left it behind. I feel that emails are the most effective way to communicate with parents. I also think the same way as a parent of twins in high school.

Jim McCarthy

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I connect with my students families on a weekly basis. Every Friday, I send out a weekly email. This email includes important information including papers that are coming home in the take home folder, graded assessments, photos from the week, etc. I give the families updates on what we are learning in our phonics program and math. I also give them a sneak peek at special events that are coming up the follow week. I teach 1st grade, so there are normally many things that need to be communicated on a weekly basis such as spirit days, permission forms, signatures for things, etc. Email is 100% the easiest and quickest way for me to communicate with my students families. I find that it is a the easiest because many parents have their email set up to where they get a notification on their phone right when I send out an email. I have it set up the same way, so whenever a parent emails me, it pops up on my phone right away and I normally answer back right away if it quick question. It’s almost like texting which I find to be very easy and convenient. Unless the email is a lengthy one that needs a thoughtful response, I may wait to answer back until the following school day. Another way that I connect with my students families is through my students weekly homework sheet. Every week, I send home a weekly homework sheet that stays in the students take home folder all week. It lists all of the days of the week along with the homework assignments for each night. It also includes different things going on at school on the homework sheet like after school clubs, early dismissals, assemblies, etc. That way, families know what is going on every day at school and what to expect for the week. Most of the information was sent home in the previous weekly email on Friday, but it’s a good reminder if they do not remember everything from the email. Parents will also write me notes on the homework sheet such as “We were not able to finish this assignment last night so we will finish it tonight.” or questions like - “Could you help Trevor with this problem in class?” I then will write them notes back and since the homework sheet goes home every night, they will see the note when the students go home. 

I also have a classroom website that is attached to my email signature and posted on my districts website. My website has meet the teacher information, contact information, information about homework, our weekly schedule, the school website, the monthly school newsletter, arrival and dismal procedures, and an overview of the curriculum. This information was presented to parents at open house back in the beginning of the school year and is information they can refer back to and ask me questions about at any point throughout the school year. Reflecting on the resources in the module, I don’t think I will change my communication as of right now because I really like the way I communicate with my students families. I do think that my current communication could be improved by including a podcast or a recording component to my weekly email. Some families might enjoy to listen to the information in the weekly email instead of reading all of the information. I could add in some words in the weekly email and then add the podcast component if parents would prefer to listen instead of read. There are always to improve communication with families! 

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I communicate with my students and parents mostly through email and Google classroom. Our online gradebook has a feature to send out mass or individual emails. What I don't care for is that it has limited characters and doesn't save a copy to my regular email address to document the contact.

Many of my students' parents have signed up for Google classroom, but I don't have too much engagement from them via that platform.

I have recently set up a class Remind as I have used it in my old school. I watched the video in the resources and have gotten some new tips on how to use it more effectively and plan to implement them soon.

I really like the idea of a class newsletter or blog for my classes, but thought maybe it would be too elementary for my high school students until I looked through the resources. I am going to work on a digital newsletter to highlight my students' accomplishments as well as upcoming events in my class. I really like the Call to Action portion and am currently brainstorming how I can incorporate that into the newsletter.

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Currently, our grade level team sends out a bi-weekly newsletter featuring a short summary of what we've been doing across various subject areas. To enhance our communication further, I think it could be helpful to include an "action steps" section at the top of each newsletter. This section will outline specific tasks or requests for parents, such as reviewing assignments with their child or signing up for parent-teacher conferences. By providing clear guidance on how parents can engage with their child's learning journey, we can foster stronger collaboration between home and school. (Kelsey Indelicato)

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Kari Rothmeyer-

I connect with my elementary music class parents in a variety of ways. I created a music class website that is on our school's website that gives an overview of specific grade level music curriculum, information about 4th/5th grade chorus, classroom performance videos, ukulele/recorder curriculum and more! I also communicate with my 4th/5th grade chorus parents via email on a weekly basis. I also have a chorus handbook that parents can refer to with questions. I also send important info to my principals that can be added to the weekly Smore newsletter that is sent to parents. I do not have a weekly/monthly music class newsletter because I teach over 600 students in 2 elementary buildings.

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In my district, our building sends out a newsletter once a month. Since it is a whole month, it is not very specific with test dates. If teachers want to, they can send their own weekly newsletter to parents, but they must all do it on the same "team" of teachers. As much as I would love to, I do not send a weekly newsletter because my entire team did not want to this year. A lot of staff members believe in teaching students at this level (5th grade) more independence. I will personally send parents an email with important information when we have upcoming tests, but this is not weekly. I try to communicate when it makes sense to. I know as a parent with a child in the district, I love receiving the weekly newsletter to be kept up to date. However, my child is in 2nd grade.

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Hello everyone,

I do not currently connect with my parents in any meaningful way. I could see where this would be useful in the primary grades, or if you had a club, sport, or activity. Though, honestly, I find Parent Square, my fifth grade son's parent communication app to be mostly useless information and a waste of time. I post grades on Skyward, and if parents have questions, they can e-mail me. This happens about once a week, or every other week. Sometimes I have to contact a parent about a problem I have with a student, and this happens roughly once a month. I do not know any of my colleagues who are using a parent communication tool other than the phone. Our district does use Microsoft Teams, but that is mostly for communicating with students. I believe Skyward has a Communication Center function that allows you to blast all parents and students with an e-mail, but I haven't used that since COVID.

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Hannah Buechner

Currently, I communicate with my student's families a couple ways. The first way is through email. Our district uses a system called Skyward that can send out emails to whole classes at a time. I don't send many mass emails, just one at the beginning and end of each semester usually with helpful study links, a copy of my syllabus, and other useful information to families. As a high school teacher, I find it isn't as necessary to have as much communication as I imagine it is in elementary school.

Something I am really proud of that I have incoporated into class is sending home a "3,2,1" sheet. I learned this from a district PD a few years ago. Around mid October I pass out a sheet to my students that has three prompts. Three words you would use to describe your student, two facts about your student, and one goal you have for them. I tell the students to have their parent or guardian fill it out and hand it back to me before thanksgiving break. I find this is the sweet spot in the year where I know everyones names and can retain more information when I get the letters back. Then, when I send individual emails home of praise, I like to include information especially if I see a student reaching a goal the parent had for them. A lot of times, parents of students who are shy will write things like they want their kid to participate or to make a new friend. It always brings me so much joy when I see their child active, speaking up, and working with others in class and I love sharing that with families.

When I have to call home with not so great news, this is also a time I can pull out that parent sheet and approach the phone call more as a collaboration and less as a punitive call.

I would say the final way we communicate with families is through instagram. We have a department handle, LWCworldlanguages, and I send lots of photos in to my department chair with descriptions of what is going on in class. She then posts it with a caption or puts it on a story. This is a direct way the community can see what is happening in my classroom.

I think my communication about larger projects could be improved. The students create such amazing art, presentations, and complete tasks that dive into language and culture. It would be neat to set up a way, maybe in the blog style like the link from the module, where it shows off what they have done.

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Charmaine Jacobs

As an educator it is very important that I practice effective communication with the parents and families of my students. It is beneficial to the academic success of the students that I collaborate with parents and families. Currently, I communicate with my parents by phone, email, and the Band app. At the beginning of the school year, I introduce myself as their child’s computer teacher and I make them of aware of all the multiple channels of communication that are available. I try to contact parents every other week to discuss grades, classroom behavior, and programs or events that are happening at the school.

Reflecting on the resources provided for this week, the one resource that stood out the most to me was the use of newsletters to communication. I think I might start creating a monthly newsletter that will inform parents and familiar of the learning objectives for the month and what projects the students will be working on. This was something that I did before, but I have used newsletters since the 2022 school year.

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I, personally, do not connect with my families on a regular basis. I would communicate with my students via Google Classroom, and parents, when there is a concern, via email. Our school communicates, as a whole, via a newsletter called the Fri-Yay every Friday that is emailed to our students and parents. Our digital content director creates it for us with all the different school events that have occured that week. She creates it using Canva, giving it a clean, concise look each week. She does a fantastic job at making each page eye-catching and keeping the wording short and sweet. Each page has relevant graphics and pictures of the event that it is telling about. I think we can improve with making the presentation shorter. It tends to be roughly 20 pages, which is a bit long for students and parents. It also has lots of repeting pages from week to week, which I believe we can cut down on as well.

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I currently use a newsletter that sadly reflects many of the negative examples from the "Why No One Reads Your Classroom Newsletter" article in the resources this week. It, currently, is a kind of visually boring Google Doc that is a bit wordy and somewhat repetitive. I think some good changes would involve adding some more graphics and pictures from class work. I also like the idea of a "call to action" to give parents ideas to help their student at home. Finally, I think some kind of student created piece in the newsletter would also encourage families to read it.

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One way I connect with families at my school is by using Artsonia.com. This is an online Art gallery where I post images of my student's artwork. This becomes a digital portfolio where the students, families, and I can view artwork and see growth over time.

I also use the site X (formally known as Twitter) where my handle is @d61Hearth. All of my X posts are also then posted on my school website.

My school sends out a Smore newsletter at the end of the day on Fridays. This is a great tool that reaches the families of the entire school. I will post articles in the Friday Smore for Art Club information or for STEAM Night.

Because I teach Art, I constantly feel that I need to be active with uploading artwork to Artsonia.com and on X. I am not sure what else more I can do to communicate without being annoying because I feel like I already do a lot.

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One way I connect with families at my school is by using Artsonia.com. This is an online Art gallery where I post images of my student's artwork. This becomes a digital portfolio where the students, families, and I can view artwork and see growth over time.

I also use the site X (formally known as Twitter) where my handle is @d61Hearth. All of my X posts are also then posted on my school website.

My school sends out a Smore newsletter at the end of the day on Fridays. This is a great tool that reaches the families of the entire school. I will post articles in the Friday Smore for Art Club information or for STEAM Night.

Because I teach Art, I constantly feel that I need to be active with uploading artwork to Artsonia.com and on X. I am not sure what else more I can do to communicate without being annoying because I feel like I already do a lot.