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In what practical ways do you and/or your school currently support parents? What benefits have you seen from this?
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Practical ways that I support parents are: offering tutoring for students that are struggling in the classroom. Currently, I offer this for free so that I can establish a relationship with the student and parents without having any strings attached. I also keep open communication with parents and their students homework. If they start to miss multiple assignments I take the time to email the parents and let them know specifically what they are missing.
The school I work at incorporates fundraising throughout the year to not only help the school but to help reduce tuition for parents. They also offer multiple programs that helps reduce tuition. We offer parent / teacher conferences and have service events throughout the year where we encourage parent involvement. Lastly, we have sports service hours that families need to complete during the sports season. This helps parents invest in the school’s extra curricular activities.
The benefit I’ve seen is that parents become supportive of what I am doing in the classroom and from a school perspective parents become invested in where the school is headed.
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Our school has both a school wide Dojo page with every parent and teacher and then also individual classroom Dojos. This helps us (especially during COVID while parents weren’t allowed in the classrooms) to stay in constant communication with the parents. It allowed me to share photos throughout the day or quick message a parent that so and so forget their basketball shoes. Communication helps parents feel more involved in connected.
On top of that though, our administrator is constantly sharing podcast or articles relating to family life, parenting, education, christianity, etc for all the parents to read. He will share short little video clips of sermons and encourage our parents to sit down as a family and watch them.
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We build relationships with parents. At the beginning of every school year, the teachers ask what the parents would like for the students to improve with (and not just academically). We try to involve the parents in activities in or around the school. This past year has been different because of Co-vid but the parents are still involved in small ways. I have called parents to tell them about something that upset their child so they could be aware. The child wasn’t in trouble but I told how I comforted their child. The parents were grateful and appreciate that I was looking out for their child. The mother said that if she had found out about it from her child, she would have made the situation worse. The fact that I have communication with the parents helps the students and parents. We are a community and a “family”.
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One simple way that our school supported parents this year was to have staff write notes of appreciation and hand those notes out to parents in the car line as they picked up their children. I am unsure of the reactions from parents receiving the notes, but I know first hand how encouraging it is to receive a note in my mailbox from my administration. I have saved many notes from my principals, other teachers and students that have meant so much.
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Our school has had to adapt to the current mitigation strategies and mandates for the past year and a half due to the pandemic. School wide, we permitted individual 14 minute conferences with masks and social distancing at the beginning of the school year to meet the teacher and unpack materials. We also set up end of first MP conferences the same way, allowing time between visits for sanitization. We were able at times to record and send video clips of students performing songs as we adhered to the mitigation guidelines. Although this was not ideal, we were so thankful to remain in person all year.
We have a school wide computer system where weekly updates can be sent to parents and behavior reports that report positive behavior and areas of struggle for the week with any consequences. We distribute report cards quarterly and progress reports mid-way through each marking period. We offer email and phone contact daily and have a social media account where they can receive updates on school activities and information. Maintaining open and deliberate communication with families is key to a successful ministry.