Communicating With Parents Strategies for Teachers: 3 Practical Ways

June 17, 2024

Effective communicating with parents strategies for teachers help build strong relationships with parents and enhance the overall educational experience for students.

As a new teacher, and let’s face it, even as a veteran teacher, communicating with parents can be intimidating and somewhat overwhelming. Finding yourself on the wrong side of a “mama bear” or feeling like you are never doing enough to communicate effectively with parents is draining. But, much of the negative communication we, as teachers, receive from parents can be significantly lessened by implementing proactive parent communication strategies in the classroom.

Here are a few simple communicating with parents strategies for teachers. As well as ways to implement a system of parent communication that will save you time and much of the stress (and fear) that comes with parent communication.

3 Communicating With Parents Strategies for Teachers

Communicating with parents can seem daunting, especially for new teachers. However, it’s an essential part of fostering a supportive and successful learning environment. By setting clear expectations, communicating often, and maintaining a positive tone, you can build strong relationships with parents and enhance your students’ educational experience. Here are three effective strategies to help you communicate with parents confidently and effectively.

Strategy #1: Set CLEAR expectations

Many times, there is a communication breakdown when parents have unmet expectations. They think you will send a weekly academic update, make a phone call whenever their student has a behavior incident, or may even expect daily notes about their student’s behavior.

Your idea of effective parent-teacher communication might differ greatly from theirs. However, this does not mean you have to have a different parent communication system for every student. It just means you must set effective communication expectations! The most important part is to COMMUNICATE the decision to parents.

The best time to do this is at the start of the school year during your open house or meet-the-teacher night. I have a slide deck that I go over and have written out very clearly what kinds of communication parents can expect from me and how often. For parents who can’t attend, I also include a small paper in my back-to-school packet explaining the same information.

Contact Cards

Parents want to have access to their child’s teacher! That doesn’t mean you need to give your cellphone number and receive a text message. But, a student’s parent wants to be able to ask questions, set up meetings, and know they can reach out to you and get information about their child and their children’s education. Remember, that doesn’t mean you need to be at every parent’s beck and call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Make sure you provide several means of communication to parents. While also setting up boundaries that protect your time! I have found teacher contact cards to be immensely helpful in giving parents several methods of communication they can use to reach me. Provide school districts information and direct contact information, such as email, class app messaging, class social media page, teacher office hours, etc. You can print, laminate, add a magnet, and hand them out at the beginning of the school year. It easily shows I have open lines of communication.

From day one, family members have had multiple ways to reach me (none of which include giving out my personal number). Again, you must set clear expectations! You can easily have a positive relationship with families even with expectations. Communicate your boundaries, including when parents can set up a meeting, how quickly you will respond to emails/messages, and when you are unavailable. There is nothing like receiving messages at 11:00 at night asking about homework or receiving an email 5 minutes before school is over changing a student’s pick-up procedure. If you set clear expectations, parents will quickly learn them, and communication of important information will run much more smoothly!

Strategy #2: Communicate OFTEN

After teaching for 10 years and being a mama myself, I have learned that parents want to know how their kiddos are doing at school, especially in primary grades. What are they learning? Are they making friends? Are they participating in class? How is their behavior? Parents can’t be with their babies all day, so they want to know what they are doing. This doesn’t mean you need to make a detailed rundown of each student’s academic achievement for the day. But by giving parents an idea throughout the week of how their kiddo is doing goes a long way in developing positive two-way communication.

Apps like Remind and Classtag are options to enhance parent communication. They are great for sending child-specific information to a parent or sending class information to all parents. Plus, it’s a digital tool on your phone that is NOT your personal phone number. A communication app is great asset in contacting parents.

Class Newsletters

Another tool for implementing parent communication is sending home class newsletters. It can be a weekly newsletter or even a newsletter for the month! A newsletter simple way to give parents a glimpse into your classroom. Families will know important dates and key things their students are learning in the classroom.

Whether parents read it or not, you have done your due diligence to send them the information. You can always refer to it should you be questioned later. I have created a simple, editable newsletter template that can be printed or sent via email. You can always use both for communication bonus points! Just fill in and print or email!

Strategy #3: Don’t forget POSITIVE communication!

With everything that we teachers have on our plates, it is so very easy to only communicate directly with parents when we have a problem – a behavior issue, poor academic grade, missing work – the list goes on. There are plenty of “problems” we have to communicate with parents about. While those things ARE important and need to be addressed, it is also important to tell parents POSITIVES about their child! They need to hear the GOOD things their baby is doing. Students NEED to go home with positive news to share with their parents.

It’s all about the parent-teacher partnerships and nothing is more fun than hearing the stories from my students going home to their parents and sharing the positive notes I had sent home with them.

Positive News Notes

The thought of adding another thing to an already full teacher plate is daunting, so I created these easy-to-use parent communication notes. There are several positive notes and common quick notes teachers need to send home. They are basically filled out for you (all you need to do is a few specific details), so the task of regular communication home just got easier! I print each note on different colored paper and have a stack of each one ready to grab at a moment’s notice!

Just sending ONE positive note home with each student per week. Whether it’s about academic improvement, positive choices made, or a sweet story. One note can make such a difference in your parent-teacher relationship. They know that you see their child as more than just data. That you value their child and see them as a person and want a positive relationship. Grab these parent communication notes for free!

Effective communication with parents is crucial for creating a supportive and successful classroom environment. By setting clear expectations, communicating regularly, and maintaining a positive attitude, you can build strong relationships with parents. This relationship will benefit your students’ learning and development. Implement these strategies to make parent-teacher communication smooth and productive. In turn, fostering a collaborative effort in your students’ educational journey.