To me, family partnership is as important as Unit Zero.
In Unit Zero, you set a strong foundation with your students about what they can expect in your classroom before starting the first unit.
Similarly, before the first day of school, you reach out to the families of each of your students to set a foundation for a partnership you will rely on throughout the school year.
This introduction helps families learn what they can expect from you while giving you a chance to learn what you can expect from them.
So, What’s a Classroom Teacher to Do?
Here are my suggested three-ish steps to partnering with families:
First Call
First Email
Follow-Up Call
First Call
Set aside two hours to call every family on your list. You’ll likely need to leave a message for about 50% of your families, and some numbers might not work. But you will talk to some families, which is fantastic—so get your scripts ready!
Here’s a script I have used over the years:
“Hi, this is Ms. O’Garro. I’m reaching out to speak with the family of Joshua Sank. This year, I’ll be Joshua’s 7th-grade math teacher. On the first day of school, I’ll send home the Course Syllabus and the Course Expectations. My contact information is on the syllabus, but this is my Google Voice number. Is this the best way to reach you? Do you prefer calls, text messages, or emails? I’m looking forward to meeting Joshua and staying in contact with you. Please feel free to call or leave me a message anytime.”
Pro Tip: Have your class roster(s) ready to jot down quick notes, such as "spoke with dad, prefers emails."
First Email
For the first email of the school year, send an email to all your families and attach your Course Syllabus and Course Expectations document. Use your phone call script to draft an email that you will send to each family.
Pro Tip: Use your Gmail contacts feature to create a group list of your families (by class for upper grades). This way, you won’t need to type every family name again (and again) throughout the school year when you are sending out general updates. Be sure to send group emails using “bcc” to protect your families' privacy.
Here’s my email script:
Hi, this is Ms. O’Garro. Welcome to the new school year! We may have already spoken, or you may have received a voice message from me. I’m following up with a digital copy of two documents attached to this email: the Course Syllabus and the Course Expectations. I’ll hand out both in class on the first day of school. Please review these documents with your child and have them bring back a signed copy of the syllabus. Feel free to reach out anytime with questions. I’m looking forward to meeting you and the wonderful year ahead.
In partnership,Ms. O’Garro
As families respond (or don’t), use your class roster(s) to jot quick notes: "spoke with [name], left message, no answering machine, wrong #, family emailed back, wrong email, preferred communication is call, text, email, etc."
Follow Up Call
Within the first week of the new school year, continue reaching out to families you have not been able to reach. At this point you will have met your students and can ask them to confirm the contact information on file. If your syllabus includes a signature line similar to the one I’ve included on mine, use the contact information that families have filled out.
By the end of the second week of school, you will have a list of families you have spoken with, those who have responded via text or email, and those you have not heard from at all.
It probably goes without saying but the designated school personnel (principal, guidance, student support, family liaison, etc) need to be made aware of the families you have not heard from at all and the steps you have taken to reach them, including confirming contact information with your student(s). Also consider reaching out to the teacher who had the student the year prior. What other steps or suggestions would you add for a) informing the administrative team and b) getting family contact information?
And that’s it—almost!
From here, regular communication is a must. Send out regular emails to all your families about what’s going on in your class, such as major objectives of an upcoming unit, field trips, important dates, school announcements, etc.
Here’s the thing: You may not hear back from many families, and that’s okay. The point is to keep families informed about what’s happening in their child’s school and classroom.
So how much time will all of this take?
First Phone Call: Each call will take, on average, 2 minutes since you’ll likely get voicemails, but you may also get an excited parent who wants to talk. If you have 100 students, that’s 200 minutes or 3 hours and 20 minutes. If that feels like too much time in one day, consider breaking family communication up over a few days—maybe one day per class. So if you have 30 students in a class, that’s 60 minutes/1 hour.
First Email: The most time-consuming aspect of the first email is entering all the email addresses unless you have a cool and functioning Student Information System that integrates with your school email and makes sending email correspondence easy. Otherwise, entering email addresses, creating email groups, and deciding whether to send your Welcome email to individual families or as a group email (with family emails in the “bcc” section) will likely take about 2 hours or less.
Follow Up: Following up until you have reached a family member for all of your students is ongoing. Once you pass along your list of families you have not heard from at all you do want to periodically check with students and administrators for updates. Especially if you have academic or other concerns. Establishing a partnership with families early in the school year can make a huge difference in students’ attentiveness, engagement and therefore learning outcomes. The time commitment will vary depending on your school or team’s established system and support for getting in touch with all families. It’s crucial to maintain a record of your communication attempts with all student families, noting when, who, and how.
Regular Communication:
Keeping families updated on what is going on in your classroom and the school as a whole via email may take you an hour or two to craft the first time because you will be making decisions about content and formatting. Formatting takes the longest to figure out. ProTip: Simple is best. Bold Headings, 3-5 sentences, and bullet points. Once you have the content and formatting figured out, regular communication to all of your families could happen once per month or when you start a new unit.
Regular communication to families regarding academic progress can happen via automated progress reports every two weeks through your Student Information System. 10 minutes to remember how to send out progress reports. 5 minutes to select and send.
And then there are the inevitable phone calls and emails you may need to make each week, which you may consider capping at the top 5 highest priority calls (20-30 min). Pro Tip: Place these calls on Tuesday or Wednesday after school to give families a chance to get back to you by the end of the week. Then send a follow up text or email Friday before you leave for the day so that you have a record.
As always, please leave a comment: When do you introduce yourself to your families? How often do you reach out to families with updates?
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