The Corriganite Nation: The Things I Learned From Having a Difficult Class: Communicating With Parents

This is the seventh post in my Things I Learned from Having a Difficult Class Series. Today I'm focusing on communicating with parents. In the upcoming weeks I'll discuss communicating with the administration and the bigger picture. How do you effectively communicate with parents so they get an accurate picture of their child, but not constantly hear negative things?

I had an interesting relationship with the district behavior team this past year. I got some things that may be good ideas to use in the classroom, but unfortunately that isn't always the case. I'm not going to go into detail about that..

One thing that I found was helpful was the "happy note" or "good note" home. It's just a quick note that you would ideally send home daily with something positive for the day. When dealing with the really difficult child you will probably need to get creative to find good things, but there is always something good in every child every day. For free examples of happy notes I use click here or here.

If the family is more tech savvy, you can always send home a quick email. Since time is so limited, I usually tell the parents that I'll just send something home in the subject line unless there is something that I need to go into more detail about, positive or negative. I've also had luck using Class Dojo, which is an app that you can use to communicate with parents. I only use this for parents who need more updates about their child's behavior, so I usually only input 1 child into my "classroom" during the year. It seems like it removes some of the formality when communicating with parents, especially those who are hesitant to communicate with the school for whatever reason.

Side note.. I just posted about documentation.. MAKE A COPY AND KEEP IT IN YOUR FOLDER. (If you're emailing the family or using Class Dojo there is already an electronic paper trail) Just because.. you never know what you're going to need later on. Especially if this is part of a behavior plan, and the goal is to find you are not compliant with the actions stated in the plan. Remember, prove that you are!

While it is important to communicate positive information to parents, it is critical that parents get an accurate picture of their child. If the child is behind, they need to know. If the child struggles with peer relationships, they need to know. If the child is disrespectful and defiant, they need to know (although they probably already know this). They may not need to heard all of these things at once - it would be too overwhelming, but they still need to hear them. They also may not be ready to accept or deal with these things that you tell them, but they still need to hear it all the same. The best way to address these issues is to be gentle, but direct. Have evidence to back up what you're saying, particularly with numbers. The numbers, or even a graph, don't lie so it is hard to argue with that ~~although some people may still try~~.

This is a graph that I learned how to make in excel this year to present to parents at conferences. This uses DIBELS data and shows the child's current level, growth throughout the year, the goal where they should be at the point in the year, and then the end of year goal. The numbers are all randomized so they don't know who is who. If you use a numbering system in your class, like I do, you need to make sure their class number does not match the number on the graph. It is much easier to make than it looks! Let me know in the comments if you'd like a post about the steps to create this graph in excel!

What suggestions do you have for communicating with parents? Leave your answer in the comments!