Parent Communication: Healthy Communication
By: Jason Otis
Communication between schools and parents is leaving some parents reeling from an overdose of unrelated information, while others are showing “awareness” deficiencies of their own children’s school lives. Fortunately, there’s one common prescription any school can follow. Healthy communication relies heavily on technology.
Maintaining the right levels of communication between parents and schools can be a challenge, no question about it. Improving communication is certainly worth the effort, however. A few of the clear benefits include:
* Building school-to-parent relationships
* Increasing parental involvement
* Increasing student retention
* Reducing confusion for everyone
Whether you're techno-illiterate or techno-savvy, making the right choices on when to use technology, how to use technology, and what technology to use can be intimidating. Here are the core tips to consider when making those choices.
Distribute the workload.
Give your staff the time, the tools, and the permission to communicate. In fact, make it part of their day. Doing so distributes the heaviest part of the workload over the entire faculty and will dramatically improve the quality of information being delivered to parents. Using Web-based software that teachers can access from anywhere eases bottlenecks and allows the owner of the message to prepare it on their schedule.
Staff helping with the heavy lifting does not relinquish the gatekeeper role, however. It's important that one person, or a very small team, review communications before they are distributed. Doing so assures quality control and the character of the messages sent that represent your school and community.
Web-based software applications built for group management also support approval processes, so the message can be written by one person and approved by another.
Grow in stages.
If you’re a novice at technology, the best rule of thumb is to start slow and add as you go. Don’t be overwhelmed by, or too impressed with, all of the bells and whistles.
Growing in stages is great for parents, too. Doing so allows parents to get used to technologies they may not be familiar with — without them feeling overwhelmed.
"Taking on too much early on can get you bogged down in management and training details that slow the school’s ability to adopt an effective communication program," says Matt Carlisle of Big Heart Design, a user-centered design agency. "Start small and add additional offerings over time."
In the early stages, ask parents to help with some of the more tedious, expensive, or time-consuming aspects. For example, encourage parents to spread the word about special events by forwarding e-mails and calling neighbors.
Filter by group.
Filtering by groups is the most important thing you can do to improve communication with parents.
"Parents get messages that are relevant to them without getting buried by ones that aren't," states Bill Nix, president and chief executive officer of Axletree Media.
This requires some setup time for both staff and parents, but once that’s complete, it will save everyone involved from overloaded e-mail boxes and missed opportunities.
As you begin grouping parents, one thing to keep in mind is that parents will belong to multiple groups. As an example, one parent with one student could be involved in the following groups: a "school" group, a "grade" group, a "class" (room) group, and one or more activity groups (sports, foreign language, etc.).
Group messages can be delivered by multiple forms of electronic communication – e-mail, blogs (RSS), text message, phone automation, and even group-based Web pages.
When making the decision on the right way to distribute messages, conduct surveys to gather real numbers. For example, do more than 90 percent of your parents have access to the Internet? Do more than 90 percent of your parents have access to an e-mail address?
Remember exceptions.
With all this talk of making communication easier with technology, the one thing you don’t want to do is use it to “hide” from parents. While technology presents itself as the optimal solution most of the time, there are certainly other times and situations where face-to-face conversation is required.
Parents are just as busy as the staff in the school, so if they're calling or want to meet in person – they probably have a good reason. So, be sure that you remain sensitive to the needs and benefits of a face-to-face, in-person meeting – even while you are encouraging the use of technology.
Jason Otis is the vice president of marketing and product development at Axletree Media, the developers of Web site and group tools for churches, schools, and non-profits, www.e-zekiel.com.
