How do you currently communicate with your families? What tech do you currently use?

What do you currently communicate with your families? Do you include the technology you will be using? Expectations? Digital Citizenship?

What are some challenges you face in family communication?

Curriculum night and parent teacher. Hard to beat a good old fashioned phone call! Individual email or group emails.

Course outline and expectations, ways they can support their child at home, expectations for the course and time they should spend at home on course homework. How I assess with general timelines to prepare for "stressful" events like unit tests.

Availability, time constraints, making a meaningful connection with over 100 families is impractical for a 4 month semester and we revert to formal, one-sided messaging as a result.

Student progress is communicated through PowerSchool, course content is communicated via Moodle, and individual conversations use email and phone. We used to record videos with various technologies in lieu of Curriculum Night as well, which was quite useful.

I include a quick overview of technology used in the course, but this discussion occurs primarily with the students (grade 11+12).

Long distance area codes for phones are challenging, as school phones can't call them. Reaching families during school hours and lack of reliable access to technology for families are also concerns.

We use email

There is limited communication with families thus far

What to share and when to share with them

I communicate mostly through phone calls and emails. Last year my case load changed every 6ish weeks so I was in communication with new families frequently. I want to start using Seesaw to share work with families.

Currently, I communicate with families explaining my role and how I will be supporting their learner. I will also share updates with families about the progress their learners are making.

Some challenges are the number of families I communicate with, not having my own class of students, EAL families, and lack of access to technology.

The majority of my communication is done through email but I also use the Seesaw app.

Seesaw lets me post class announcements as well as post photos of student work on their profile so that family members can only view their child's work.

My biggest challenge with family communication is involvement/engagement. It often feels like I can communicate information in several places and families still end up missing key things.

To communicate with the family, I send the communication plan home via email with the class code. I let the parents know that email is my preferred method of communication and that they can call my classroom and lead a voicemail in which i will return after 3:15. For parent night on the 14th. I wont be at school, so I will record a video and post a Qr code so parents can virtually meet me.

I communicate that we will be using chrome books, the cell phone policy.. i should include the AI policy that I encourage and allow it with guidance and support.

When emails are not updated it is difficult. Sometimes you just don't receive a message back. In high school parents tend to think that you did something to their child to make them act a certain way. That can be a challenge when I am trying to support them.

I currently communicate with families using email and occasional phone calls for significant issues. I send mass emails to my HS parents near the end of each major unit. Parents have access to PowerSchool for both formative and summative assessment grades and many choose to be included on a Google Classroom list where they can see the assignments / results posted for their student.

I communicate expectations, overview of the course and how parents can stay engaged via PowerSchool. Recently, I've touched on AI in my syllabus section on academic integrity.

Many parents in my school have long distance area codes or international phone numbers. Reaching them via phone is tough. I rely mostly on email as a result. Many of my parents also don't speak English. This is challenging because I often am forced to rely on the student I'm calling about to translate! This, again, makes email my preferred method of communication.

Mostly emails or phone calls. I also include parents on the Google Classroom so they see class updates.

I communicate basic info, course outline and expectations, academic and behavioral updates. If we're doing specific projects/class work that require additional information I will reach out. Being a math teacher, not much of my parent communication centers around technology.

Not having a classroom phone and poor cell service in my room means a lot of phone calls in the parking lot. Trying to provide info to 120+ families about their child's progress in not always realistic as well.