Parent Communication Tips for Teachers

Linking up with Lucky Little Learners, Schroeder Shennigans in 2nd, and more helpful bloggers this month to bring you Parent Communication Tips and Resources for Teachers.

I have some great freebies and resources to share with everyone on this month's topic.

At my school we have three grading periods and for each we have one progress report and one report card, bringing it to six reports. Our school policy is to meet with parents twice a year for at least two report cards conferences (fall and spring) and if their student is doing well enough they don't require additional conference times. In this case we can just send home these reports home to be signed and return. I don't know about you but I have had trouble getting important papers signed and returned from students countless times.  How about papers just returned in one piece without being mangled or dirty? I once had a maple syrup covered paper returned to me before using these manila envelope with these covers. There are three versions of the note, with one only in English and two English with Spanish versions to chose from (depending on regional differences which phrase is more commonly used).

I just glue these notes on to manila envelopes and send them through the lamination machine. Now permission slips, signed progress reports, behavior notes, and school office papers, all make it neatly and safely back to my classroom! Finally I just place each student's number before the # using a sharpie. You could even add their name after the # Sharpie and wipe it off with rubbing alcohol at the end of the year. Or you can opt to just put your room number on these too. Finally, there is room for a teacher name at the bottom of the notices.

If you'd like to snag this FREE Return Important Papers Note just head over to my TpT store.

This is another awesome and free parent communication note I use with my old school pocket card chart for managing classroom behavior. On this "Go For Blue" note students circle the rule they broke each day and color the card they ended up on the card chart. Rules and color key are located at the bottom and the notes also comes in Spanish too! I only send this note home on Fridays and students have it signed by a parent and return it to school on Monday.  I also stamp the note on Friday using my initial stamp, to checking for correct colors and rules circled, before sending it home.

I think this system is absolutely genius, for two reasons, when I added the part where students can circle the rule they broke this cut down tremendously on parent questions and phone calls asking what their precious darling did to deserve a card change. Also parents can't contact you over the weekend when the school is closed, and they may finally have time to provide an additional consequence for their child if they chose, without the work week being in the way.  However if you must talk with a parent on the phone, remeber to use *67 before dialing the parent from your cellphone, so your number doesn't show up on their phone. If you want to learn more about how I combine this system with Whole Brain Teaching, click here to be taken to another blog post that goes into more depth about this. You can find this EDITABLE product and FREEBIE over at my TpT store by also clicking the pic below.

I hope you enjoyed these tips and freebies for parent communication. If you are looking for more tips just head over to  Lucky Little Learners, and Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd to see more teacher ideas on parent communication.