School/Home Relationship

 



For any school district it is crucial to develop a good home/school connection. This is important because it allows for parents to feel more comfortable with the way in which their child is being educated everyday. As future educators we need to take it upon ourselves to make sure this connection between the school and the home is perfect and every parent feels satisfied with the way their child is being treated. For me if I was a parent I would be annoyed I was in the dark on my child's education. 


Part 1


When looking at the ways in which school districts communicate with the home, the main way would have to be Board of Education meetings. I have recently taken the time to attend a Board of Education meeting held by the Plainview-Old Bethpage school district on April 3rd 2023. It was quite an interesting experience, as I have never attended one before. The board spoke on issues within the school district and the best ways to fix the issues. I am from Hicksville and attended the Hicksville Public School education system growing up, so I didn’t have any bias on the issues that the Plainview-Old Bethpage board were discussing. This made it intriguing to watch and take notes on. 

This meeting was a budget meeting but they did not focus on the budget for the entire meeting. One of the main points for the meeting was to discuss the “Enrollment Imbalance Solutions Timeline”. This issue was discussing how they are going to split new students amongst the different middle schools and elementary schools. This was to make sure that there was overpopulation in one of the schools. With this students will not know what school they are going to until they register. They then went over the class sizes on average throughout the school district. This is important information for the parents because larger class sizes normally mean less one on one time between the teacher and their child. 

Learning about what the school district spends money on was also very interesting because it shows where their priorities are and the parents can take note of that. One of the largest increases in budget was in the technology department, showing that they are trying to modernize as best as they can, increasing technology funding by $526,000. They also discussed how they had excess money and they will use it to make repairs around the school district. 

I watched “Putting Parents to Work” , a case study conducted by NBC. I thought this was very interesting because it shows parents getting involved to help with students and school districts that have students who struggle with the English language. Having the parents directly involved in the classroom is a great way to bridge the gap between school and the home. I personally don’t think I would implement this into my classroom only because I think this could possibly lead to parents getting in the way of the learning experience. For example I say something that they don’t agree with and they speak up during the class preventing learning.


Part 2 


My plan for addressing students' parents and making the school/home connection stronger is as follows. 

  • Communicating as often as possible with different forms of communication such as email and phone calls. Maybe even possible messaging apps that may be implemented some day.

  • Positive phone calls. “If you have a self-contained class, call all homes within the first couple of weeks and then at regular intervals throughout the year. If you teach many students, identify those students who perhaps need a positive call home.” (Aguilar 2011)

  • Be ready to listen to feedback from parents

  • Bring up positives that the student is doing, such as excelling in certain areas of a subject. 

  • I will try my best to learn all the parents' names. This can make it so the parent feels more comfortable around you and trusts you to take care of their child. Showing the initiative to not only learn the child's name but also the parents can go a long way.

  •  Make sure the families always have updated contact information “Ensure that families understand why the school needs updated contact information, especially during the pandemic.” (Breiseth 2021) 


I think that a combination of all of these methods of communication will be very helpful in making the relationship with my students' parents much easier. With me working towards a degree in adolescent education in history I will most likely be working with students who are a little older from middle school- high school. This is an important time with the older students looking to get into college and there being a lot of pressure on them. During this time parents will surely want to know what is going on with their child.


References


Aguilar, E. (2011, September 23). 20 Tips for Developing Positive Relationships with Parents. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/20-tips-developing-positive-relationships-parents-elena-aguilar

Links to an external site.


Borovoy, A.E. (2012, November 2). 5-Minute Film Festival: Parent-Teacher Partnerships. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/film-festival-parent-teacher-partnerships 


Breiseth, L. (2021, August). Communicating with ELL Families: 10 Strategies for Schools. National Education Association. https://www.nea.org/professional-excellence/student-engagement/tools-tips/communicating-ell-families-10-strategies

Comments

  1. Hi Daniel,
    While reading about your experience at the Board of Education Meeting and ways you would address students' parents and making the school/home connection stronger was very informative. When you were discussing part one of your blog, what stood out to be was that even though you attended a budget meeting, it was not only about budget. When most people hear budget meeting, they expect it to be just about the budget. I found it to be more informative that the meeting focused on other aspects as well and not just about discussing the budget. In part 2, communication is key when dealing with parents. As future educators, it is important for parents to feel involved in their child's schooling. By making deeper connections not only with students, but parents as well will be extremely beneficial to teachers. If a parent feels comfortable and has trust for a teacher, then they are going to feel better about their child. Overall, knowing not only students names but parents as well will help in forming a bond and having a strong foundation in the classroom.

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  2. Hi Daniel,
    I really enjoyed reading your blog post this week and I totally agree with you in the sense that it is extremely important for schools to have constant communication with the students enrolled, as well as the families of the students. I haven't attended my board meeting just yet but from the sound of it I think they are really productive, and they cover a wide range of topics, not just one sole topic. I agree that positive phone calls and emails are extremely important as forms of communication between an educator and the family of the the student they are talking to. It's important for schools to understand they have to be willing to listen to what parents have to say. I thought it was important that you noted this. Its crucial for communication to be a key element in multiple different aspects of schooling systems and you did a great job providing examples because it is so crucial.

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