Connecting Home and the High School Classroom
Written by: Kelsey Koeneman
At the end of the 2024 school year, I knew that my teacher-parent communication had to change. When things were good, I felt connected to my students. However, there are always moments in which we need to reach out to parents for extra support. I felt like I was this random stranger dropping into their voicemail and/or inbox asking for help and they had no context for who I was and how I was in my classroom.
Unfortunately, this is quite typical as students move from primary to secondary school. We no longer have “Room Parents” and back-to-school night attendance is bleak in comparison to those of elementary schools. I was working hard to make my classroom a warm, engaging, and safe space, but all of the work was done behind the scenes.
In order to bring parents back into my classroom, I decided to do a monthly newsletter for each subject that I taught. I also decided that I would do one for the Student Government Organization of which I am a co-sponsor. At first, my goal was to open communication and start a dialogue with all parents. I wanted them to know who I was when I was reaching out for support.
However, as the school year progressed, so did my skills in relaying this information. At first, each newsletter took close to 1 hour to put together. However, this is because I was working completely from scratch, and you won’t have to do that. (see linked resources)
At the end of each month, I saved my Canva document as a PDF and emailed it out to all of the students and parents enrolled in my Google Classroom. The newsletters went from being a question of “What is this?” from students and parents to “Put this in the newsletter” and “I want my mom to see this” with my students. I received a couple of emails responding to my newsletters each month, and I noticed throughout the year that parents were reaching out to me on a more regular basis. However, the interactions had changed. They were no longer one-sided, as if they didn’t know me at all. Instead, it was like they were reaching out to a colleague that they had rarely interacted with, but there was a newfound sense of politeness and mutual appreciation.
“The newsletters went from being a question of, “What is this?” from students and parents to “Put this in the newsletter,” and, “I want my mom to see this” with my students.”
My first couple of newsletters related basic information concerning classroom syllabi, norms, and an overview of the course.
Check out my August newsletters…
As the year progressed, I began to get a better idea of what parents and students wanted to know about. My newsletters went from colorful and fairly vague to extremely specific, showcasing the level of engagement and strong relationships that were being established in my classroom.
“My newsletters went from colorful and fairly vague to extremely specific, showcasing the level of engagement and strong relationships that were being established in my classroom.”
By the third or fourth iteration, each newsletter had its own personality & spoke for itself:
I was able to showcase the differentiation in my lesson plans as well as the unique abilities of all of my students. I had a physical representation of who was given positive feedback in months prior, making it simpler to ensure that every student had a moment to shine.
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows though. Creating a visually appealing and accurate newsletter was also a lot of extra work in addition to all of my current responsibilities. One of the absolutely crucial rules that helped me achieve this and still feel positive about it was giving myself the entire first week of the next month in order to get the newsletters out. I would get them done and send them out as I did so. If one subject got theirs before another, it didn’t have to be the end of the world. At the end of the semester, I was relieved that some of my classes were restarting and I could re-use the templates that I made in the fall for my spring sections. This actually made a huge difference in my pacing for the course as well as making that month’s newsletter a breeze to send out. I went from spending close to an hour on each to 15 minutes or so on each. I am looking forward to moving past the pilot year of 2024-2025 and using my current newsletters as shells for this school year.
Another positive of doing this in my classes was that students and the community finally got to see all of the work that goes into the student government organization that I co-sponsor. I began sending these out to all students, staff, and parents of the involved students. Eventually, our district social media coordinator began posting them to our school’s Facebook page. I noticed an uptick in positive feedback, both written and in-person, concerning the organization.
If you still aren’t convinced that a newsletter will transform your relationships with secondary students and parents, check out these pre-made Google compatible newsletters that you could use to implement this method this whole semester!
Resources
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