Communicating with Families

[Article]This article offers tips to middle school parents including ways to stay involved in their child’s education—even when they'd rather not have you around.

[Article]Forty-four tips for hosting a successful Open School Night! There are ideas in here for the primary teacher as well as the middle school teacher ranging from smiling and volunteer calendars to being proud of what you do and classroom scavenger hunts.

[Article]Explore nine tried-and-proven techniques for building and sustaining solid relationships with the parents of middle school students. The techniques result in opportunities to meet parents before school starts, gather student information from parents, include parents in the school day, and inform them about curriculum and classroom events and activities.

[CFG]Guiding questions and possible responses to facilitate further discussions in cohort groups.

[Article]The PDF from this link offers universal, targeted, and intensive strategies for communicating with families.

[Article]Creating a newsletter that engages parents’ and students’ interests has a better chance of making it home and being read! This author details how the inclusion of photos in his kindergarten weekly newsletter made a difference. Additional suggestions are included.

[Video]In this 15-minute video, see three ways to empower parents to become involved: a parent leadership program, a family science night, and a parent education program for pre-school parents.

[Video]In this video, special education teacher Meg Randall explains effective strategies parents of children with learning disabilities can use to communicate with teachers.

[Article]This article will explore the following seven family engagement principles: Be prepared, be respectful, be specific, be strategic, be flexible, be creative, and be collaborative.

[Article]This PDF link offers a research article from the Harvard Family Research Project which details three family involvement processes: parenting, home–school relationships, and responsibility for learning.

[Article]This toolkit features parent engagement approaches and strategies that are utilized by parents and partners involved with First 5 LA’s Partnerships For Families initiative.

[Article]Three ways this high school reading teacher keeps parents informed include: online grading systems, student data, and behavior logs. The author also describes his back-to-school night practices.

[Article]This collection of articles offers parents advice for varied ways to become involved in the classroom and school communities. Article topics include: chaperoning, volunteering, supporting the arts, advocating for your child, questions to ask your child about his/her day, and others.

[Article]Learn about this author’s pre-conference planning, setting arrangement, and information sharing strategies and techniques. Sample conference forms are included.

[Other]This site provides resources designed to help struggling learners, implement Response to Intervention, and attain the Common Core State Standards. Academic and behavior interventions, CBM, and free downloads are all included on the site.

[Video]This video is an interview with a school counselor who discusses focusing on the future, rather than the past, in parent conferences.

[Other]This article provides insights into what to say and how to say it, K-12 schools to communicate with families and parents. Click on “more” for details of each project.