Email and school Web portals. Giving parents live online access to student grades, attendance, and assignments has been a great communication booster. They feel involved and can easily email with questions or suggestions. Playing phone tag is over.
Bob Elenbaas
Teacher
Lake Orion High School
Lake Orion, Michigan
Sharing conferences with other teachers. By having another of a student's teachers with us, parents and students can get updated and teachers can talk about learning styles and behavior issues in more than one class. The group gets a more complete picture of how a student is doing academically and can work together on possible solutions.
Marcie Wombold
Humanities instructor
Aviation High School
Seattle, Washington
I keep a blog called The Principal's Office -- tagline: "Not as bad a place to be as you remember" -- linked from the school's home page. I talk about what's going on in school, upcoming events, school philosophy, adolescent health tips, and so on, while offering discussion forums, an image gallery, a calendar, and, in the near future, a link to an online bookstore.
Norman Maynard
Principal
Thornton Friends Upper School
Silver Spring, Maryland
Tell them they and their child control nearly 80 percent of what makes a learner successful; the school contributes only 20 percent. If they want success, they, as well as the school and its teachers, need to be accountable.
Tom King
Adjunct professor of education
University of St. Thomas
Minneapolis, Minnesota
A Web site, of course! But it must be an online portal that contains student work samples, learning objectives for the week and the school year, state standards, online/PDF resources, teacher-communication links, monthly classroom news, and polls and surveys for student and parent feedback.
Miles Roe
Sixth-grade teacher
Mill Creek Elementary School
Doylestown, Pennsylvania
We have established a parent listserv, which we use to send out a "Weekly Message." It is great for last-minute reminders of upcoming events in school as well as in the community.
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I have a simple, low tech
I have a simple, low tech way of keeping in touch with parents. Each of my students has a three ring binder that we call B.E.E. Binders. (Bring Everything Everyday) I got the idea from a teacher's website.
http://www.teachingheart.net/moosebooks.html
In the binder there is a section for the typical things you would find in a student binder - math notes, reading notes, etc. The difference with these binders is the first section is for parent communication (it has filler paper that is just for parent/teacher commmunication), and the second section is for our school calendar and schoolwide and classroom newsletters. The third section holds homework assignments, so parents can check up on this, as well. Everything is in a central location that is brought home and returned to school every day.
My parents love this, and I get positive feedback all the time about how nice it is to finally have a teacher that communicates with them.