It’s no secret that communicating with parents is one of the most impactful strategies to help ensure student success. Research has shown the many different ways that parents play a key role, with 57.5% of high school students agreeing that their parents’ involvement led to high academic performance. Even just by having parents with high hopes and expectations for them, students are 81% more likely to finish high school.
That being said, maintaining parental engagement with their students’ academics isn’t clear-cut. There are several barriers that parents struggle to break through to be as involved as possible. These can range from work obligations to language barriers hindering their ability to get engaged.
While the school can only do so much to help parents engage with their students’ academics, they do play an important role in easing the process to ensure that parents feel that they have a path to maintaining their involvement.
One of the most important strategies needed to encourage parental involvement can be as streamlined as possible comes from a school’s communication plan. If your school is looking to upgrade how you connect with parents, give some of these approaches a try.
Finding The Right Communication Platform for You
Finding the most effective platform for communicating with parents is the foundation for any effective communication plan. To ensure the best option to reach parents is chosen, school leaders must first determine those parents’ needs.
Surveys
The first step to determining the right communication platform is to conduct surveys. Simple tools such as Google Forms or SurveyMonkey can streamline this process. These platforms make the surveys easy to set up and share with clear insights into the gathered data.
Include multiple different platform ideas in the survey for the parents to consider. The options can include sending updates via emails, printed newsletters, text messages, apps, or social media.
Make sure the questions on the survey are simple and quick to answer as well by using multiple choice/multiple select questions with the option to add written answers if needed.
Feedback
Once a communication platform has been selected, it is crucial to ensure that its implementation has been optimal. Worst case scenario, the chosen platform isn’t performing as well as it was intended to.
Quarterly or biannual surveys and quick polls are one way to gather information on how satisfied parents are with the communication method.
Comment sections where available are another way to gather feedback as they make it easy for parents to share their insights and suggestions.
Engagement metrics are going to be the clearest path to understanding how the platform is performing. Look for open rates social media interactions, and other metrics that are available with your chosen platform.
Ensuring Accessibility and Inclusivity
There are multiple factors in play that affect how engaged a parent can be with their child’s school. While school involvement requires effort from both the schools and the parents, there are methods for schools to ease the barriers for parents.
Scheduling
Work schedules can affect when a parent is available, and some may need sooner notice than others. Send messages at different times, including evenings and weekends, to ensure communication is accommodating the varying schedules. For events, provide early notice with regular reminders to ensure busy parents can adjust their schedules as needed.
Offline Messaging
Not all families can access the internet on demand, as can be seen through the current Digital Divide affecting students across the country. Just as these students need extra accommodation to ensure they can complete their schoolwork, so do their parents to ensure they receive all communication.
Some options for communicating with parents offline are sending home printed announcements, utilizing phone calls and voicemails, sending SMS alerts, allowing for two-way texts, or even home visits to ensure critical information gets delivered.
Communicating Across Languages
Many students, especially ESL students, may have parents who only speak a language outside of English. When this is the case, it is incredibly difficult for the parents to be involved with their child’s academics as they cannot understand the materials.
For these parents, try to provide translated materials in the newsletters, emails, or other communication methods used. Bilingual staff members may be able to help, but if they cannot, there are professional translation services available online. AI tools are another way to quickly translate messages for families.
It’s also critical to make sure these parents feel included in the school community. Utilize bilingual staff members or recruit bilingual volunteers (which can also include parents) to help assist with in-person communication and foster an environment where these parents feel like they are included and can play an active role in their child’s education.
Uniting for Student Success
Building strong and accessible channels when communicating with parents is essential for fostering meaningful parental involvement and overcoming barriers to engagement. By selecting the right communication platforms, gathering regular feedback, and ensuring inclusivity for all families, schools can create a supportive environment where parents feel empowered to participate in their children’s academic journey.
