5 Manageable Ways to Maintain Consistent Communication

As an elementary music teacher, I regularly communicate with the families of over 500 students. I’ve learned that one communication method doesn’t work for all students and all families all the time. For art, makerspace, music, and other elementary teachers who work with all the kids, it’s important to communicate in multiple ways based on different objectives. The following five tools have been great ways for me to keep communication at this scale manageable and meaningful. 

1. A Dedicated Website

Setting up a website (using tools like Wix or Google Sites) is great for establishing the definitive source for information about a specific event or schedule. Parents can look to the website for the most up-to-date information without having to look up old emails or keep track of a piece of paper.

Last spring, I created a website for our school’s “ArtHop” evening event, which included visual art, musical performances, a book fair, and food trucks. The website provided a single location that parents could refer to for schedules, food truck menus, book fair ordering information, and more.

I’ve learned that when I send information about events via email or flyers, there may be updates or even mistakes. The old information lives on when parents and students look back at outdated handouts. An up-to-date website solves this problem. Emails and hard-copy reminders work well, paired with links to the website for more detailed information that may be updated.

2. Secure Social Media–Style Sites

For frequent updates about a class, a social media–styled platform like Seesaw or ClassDojo allows you to easily update information and includes interactive features such as liking and commenting. These sites function similarly to Facebook and Instagram, but generally only the teacher makes posts and approves parents and students before they can join the group. Interaction can also be limited as the teacher determines.

I try to post a video every class period. Families love to see what’s going on in the classroom and feel very connected to the curriculum. My students love to see that their families have watched the video and sometimes even left a comment or a like. These videos give parents a conversation starter with me, which increases in-person, face-to-face communication. While I could post daily updates and videos to a Google Site, the multiple steps required would mean that I would post far less. Google Sites also lack the tools for parents to connect.

3. Special Announcements

Just like in a YouTube video, I often include bumpers on my daily posts when I use platforms like Seesaw or ClassDojo. These are short announcements before a performance video about upcoming events. I tell my students that we’re making a commercial for our event, and they really get into it.

When we were preparing for our International Day performance, each class sang a song from a different continent. Before we sang the songs, students gave information about the date of the live performance as well as instructions on how to submit family pictures for the presentation. I also added a caption that included links for parents.

Sites like Seesaw and ClassDojo also work well for simple announcements with a graphic or short video, but these are much more effective if parents are regularly looking at the platform to see in-class action of their children. I encourage parents sign up for immediate notifications to see what their child is doing in class. This also means that they are notified when I post information about upcoming events.

4. Automatic Response Emails and Email Aliases

While maintaining boundaries for working hours is important, quick responses encourage communication from students and parents. My email signature includes “While I am happy to receive emails at any time, to maintain a healthy work-family balance, I will generally only respond to emails from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on school days.” To maintain quick responses, I also use email aliases and automatic responses.

In Gmail, an alias can be set up by adding “+anything” to the first part of your email address. I set up the email alias william.y.manchester+edutopia@gmail.com for this article. Whenever someone emails me using this alias, an automatic response will be sent. During distance learning, I wanted students to receive an immediate response when they sent me an email. So, I created an alias with my name “+response.” Whenever students used this email to send me something, it sent them back a thank-you and a joke of the day. There were also responses set up for particular assignments. I would follow up with specific feedback to whatever they had sent me later.

I also used the automatic response to provide tech troubleshooting. During distance learning, students (or parents) could email “+help” and they would automatically receive a response email with the common connection issues, as well as a schedule of our live classes with links. Again, I would follow up individually as soon as possible, but often issues could be resolved with the automatic response.

For more information, here’s a step-by-step guide to setting up automatic response templates with aliases in Gmail. While I was using an alias email address to filter, a keyword in the subject line or body of the text could also be used for automatic responses.

These responses work well if you want to give students some immediate, general, and motivating feedback or if you find that you have recurring issues that you need to address.

5. Snail-Mail Postcards

To balance out the automaticity of email, the final tool I use is snail-mailing postcards home. For the past several years, our allied arts team (music, art, physical education, and library) has committed to mailing a positive postcard to each student in one class in every grade each month. Our art teacher designed a simple cover, and for each letter, we write one or two sentences to send to each child. This gives parents and students a tangible reminder of our commitment to their learning and our positive regard for them. This also ensures that through the year, every student will receive a positive postcard from an allied arts teacher.

While I’m always looking for more ways to connect with students and families, these tools have allowed me to create consistent communication channels so that I can focus more time on individualized, specific feedback and communication to students and families.