Weekly Positive Parent Contact

My first job teaching was at a center for students with severe emotional and behavioral disabilities.  One could say that the job had its share of demands and complexity. I learned in college and through my own life experiences that parents were key to a successful school year. During my first year of teaching, I noticed that 85% of my calls went directly to voice mail. Often times the calls to parents were never returned or parents were not exactly cheerful about hearing from me. 

One day when calling about a student’s inappropriate behavior, at parent gave me an ear full. In short, their message was “you people only call me for the bad things my child does. Has my child been successful in doing anything good?” The response impacted my life, and I put myself in that parent’s shoes. How would I feel if the teacher or school only contacted me with negative phone calls about my child? I would be reluctant to answer calls and would probably be on the defense when it came to dealing with concerns of the teacher.

Since that day many years ago, I have strived to build better teacher-parent relationships. I have made it a mission to call parents weekly to inform them of the awesome qualities of their child.  Each Friday I make time to contact each of my parents to address their child’s strength and amazing qualities they possess.  When the class engaged in a special project or activities, I text the parents pictures of their child learning or having fun. The feedback is simply wonderful. Every once in a while my students are instructed to call and check on up on your parents day. Each student contacts their parent to see how their day is going and to let them know students are thinking of them during the day.  This seems like a lot of work and it is! 

There are benefits to a good teacher-parent relationship:

1.          Demonstrates a supportive and caring environment.
2.      Parent observation of the time and effort that invested in their child.
3.          Establishes a collaboration that is mutually respectable
4.          Maintains an open line of communications
5.          Builds the level of parent trust
6.          Helps greatly to improve student behavior
7.           Increases parent volunteers

This job is not easy and it does not help matters if I’m defensive when addressing a parent concern. Sometimes we have to grin and bear it, but try to avoid personality conflicts, miscommunication, or misconceptions about what goes on in the classroom. I have learned to listen because often they need a shoulder to lean on. An effective teacher knows the value of effective and positive communication.