Parent Teacher Communication Teaching Resources

Make the parent-teacher relationship a true team effort this school year with teaching resources to help you open up lines of communication with parents and guardians and keep them open all school year.

From resources that will help you plan parent-teacher conferences from start to finish to templates for teacher introduction letters to parents and guardians, we have everything you need to keep parents in the know about all that's going on inside your classroom throughout the school year.

Are you looking for fresh ideas and tips on how to communicate with parents effectively as a teacher? Read on for some advice from the experienced teachers of the Teach Starter team!

How to Communicate With Parents as a Teacher

Before we dive into this, we want to offer a bit of a disclaimer. The teachers on our team have taught in numerous classrooms in diverse communities across the US. We know the parents and guardians you'll encounter are as different from one another as your students are!

That means there is no one-size-fits-all way to communicate with parents. You may be dealing with language barriers, challenging schedules that make it hard to find time for a phone call and a whole lot more. Still, you are not alone, and we hope some of these tips will help!

1. Share the Best Way (and Times) to Contact You — Do you prefer to be emailed? Want parents to slip notes in their students' folders? Does your district have a schoolwide communication system that parents might already know about? Start the school year by establishing the best ways for parents to contact you, and be clear about when you will be available. Do you check email at the end of the school day, after instruction is complete, for example, or are you inclined to check first thing in the morning? Letting parents know upfront is a good way to set boundaries while establishing that you are there to hear their concerns and questions.
2. Keep the Personal and Professional Separate — If you don't have a classroom phone (and the majority of teachers do not), you may feel pressured to hand out your personal cellphone number to parents. Don't worry. You don't have to! If you prefer texting with parents, or even sharing a phone number, why not set up a Google Voice line so you can keep your personal number separate from your professional life?
3. Share Expectations Early — Start the year off by sharing your classroom procedures, expectations and rules so parents know right away and aren't hit with a surprise mid-year. If you send a weekly newsletter, you may want to include things like learning goals and assignments that are coming up as well — again so they get word ahead of the game.
4. Get to Know Their Family — Whether it's finding out the spoken language in the home or getting to know who the primary caregivers of a student are, understanding more about your students' backgrounds and family dynamics can help you be a better communicator with their parents and guardians and get them on board. Sometimes something as simple as reaching out in the family's spoken language is all it takes to make them feel like you're on their team.

How Often Should a Teacher Communicate With Parents?

This is a question our teacher team is often asked. After all, we want to establish open lines of communication with parents, but how much is too much ... and for that matter, how much communication is enough?

The answer, of course, is fairly individual.

Do you have a student with an IEP? IDEA specifically defines parent participation in the IEP process, and how often communication should happen and exactly what you need to share with the parents of students may be outlined in that child's plan.

What about the parents of other children? How often should you be sending home classroom newsletters or picking up the phone?

When you're overwhelmed with lesson planning, grading and more, it can be tempting to let these things slide — especially if you've had tussles with difficult parents or guardians in the past.

Don't forget that getting parents on board with their child's education — and acting as your partner — depends on you making some form of communication a priority.

There's also a federal law that comes into play here. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) defines “parental involvement” as "participation of parents in regular, two-way, and meaningful communication involving student academic learning and other school activities."

In other words? It's the law that parental communication occur!

The good news? Sending home news to the parents of your students once a week is generally enough, and it doesn't have to be a long, arduous process. Here are a few great ways to communicate with parents that are quick and easy but also effective!

• Stick Notes in Student Folders — Do your students have homework folders? A simple sticky note with an update on their child, or even one of Teach Starter's printable "parent notes" can easily be slipped into the folder to alert parents about important information.

• Set Up a Classroom Social Media Account — Are you comfortable creating an Instagram page or Twitter account for your classroom? Posting photos or updates about your class is a quick way to get the word out to parents. Be sure to hide students' faces with an emoji if the parents have not given permission for their children to appear on social media!
• Email Parents Your Classroom Newsletter — Whether it's weekly or monthly, a newsletter that lets parents know some of the topics their students are studying, the dates of important events (such as the class play or picture day) and which specials are on the calendar is fairly simple to send via email with our Google Slides version!
• Use a Parent Communication App — Some parents want a lot of communication and others don't need much. Allowing parents to opt into messaging via an app allows you to easily message the entire class at once if need be — saving you time — but also allows parents to be the ones who determine if they want to opt in ... or out.
• Pick Up the Phone — It can be daunting to make a phone call (especially in this day and age!), but making a point to call parents with good news about their children is a great way to not just build the parent-teacher relationship but also give yourself an emotional boost. Nothing feels better than getting off a phone call in which you gave someone GOOD news!

• Google Classroom Updates — Does your district use Google Classroom as its LMS? Take advantage of the tool's ability to auto-send a summary each week to parents and guardians.