Parent’s Guide to School Communication from an Educator

I have found that often times parents of all backgrounds and educational levels have difficulty in understanding how they should communicate with schools regarding their children. So, I have put together some quick guidelines that I think will improve the school – parent partnership. To be clear, I believe that in the IDEAL circumstances it is the responsibility of the school to take the lead on this. That said, I think this can be beneficial for everyone involved.

Establish Communication Protocols and Expectations

As a parent it is important to understand that your child’s teacher likely has between 20 and 150 other students that they are working with every day. That said, it is fair to expect that you receive communication from the school if and when they notice any change in behavior, mood, or performance. As a parent, I believe that this is a fair expectation to share with your child’s educators and also a responsibility to share the same communication under the same parameters with the school as a courtesy if you noticing something at home.

Understand Desired Outcomes

Almost every school measures student academic success in different ways. As a parent you should have a clear understanding of what your child has been learning and will be learning in the future and how success will be measured.

Grades

Grades mean much to parents. Probably way too much. A teacher should be able to explain how they grade to you and the meaning that it carries. Assuming grades are truly a reflection of learning, artifacts should be available to show parents their student’s performance compared to the expected standard that you can clearly explain.

Where Does My Kid Fit?

Most parents want to know where their student is in comparison to their peers so national benchmarking data is generally appreciated and answers many questions. If your student struggles in these comparisons, it is not too much to expect a plan as to what the school is going to do to help your student. This is also a time to not NECESSARILY be satisfied if your student is performing well. If they are performing well compared to others, then the questions should be about ensuring they are still being challenged.

Set Goals

The goal of communicating is to create a shared commitment to a student’s success. In order to get to this end, a teacher must have invested time and energy into creating the desired outcomes for that student in the future (hopefully WITH the student) ahead of time. This act demonstrates MUTUAL responsibility for the student’s growth and gives the parent something to actively monitor.

Character Counts

Everyone wants to know who their student is when they are not around. If your student receives discipline in class or in school already may have an idea. For the 85% of students that do exactly what they should on a daily basis, it is more than appropriate to want this information from someone who may spend more time with your child on many days that you do.

Aim for a Partnership

It should never be lost that the point of communication with a teacher is for it to be meaningful and to help create better support for the student. Part of this engagement is for all parties (parent, teacher, and student) to understand how they can serve as a better partner in their child’s education. This may seem too formal, but I like to encourage parents and teachers to consider three I WILL statements to establish norms and expectations for the year. This is a commitment from the teacher, student, and parent as to what ‘I WILL’ do to improve the educational experience of the student throughout the next months of the child’s schooling experience.

Navigating the school environment is difficult for nearly every parent. My hope is that these tips on what you can and should expect in terms of communication and a partnership with your child’s educators will help provide some help while on this journey.

The Balancing Act of Afterschool Activities

It is cold outside and we struggle with balancing our daily lives. How can we keep our kids active in their daily lives even in the dead of winter? Most of our kids are over scheduled with sports, homework, afterschool activities, and screen time. Other children come home to empty homes and waste away hours waiting for parents to come home from work while eating snacks and watching television or playing video games. And other children have overwhelming household responsibilities to help their family with sibling care, dinner preparation, and laundry chores.

Managing School Day Activities

Listed below are 10 guidelines to help your children manage their school week better:

1. Encourage your children to prioritize their interests and encourage them to participate in a sports team activity, an afterschool club or activity, scheduled school projects, or play dates.
2. Ensure that children complete daily chores around the house to support the family.
3. Schedule adequate time for homework and independent writing activities each day.
4. Read to children each night. Allow adequate time for preparing for bedtime rituals.
5. Help your children organize themselves the night before a school day to ensure a smooth transition to prepare for school each morning.
6. Limit the amount time spent watching television and playing with technology each day. Some parents limit screen time use to only weekends.
7. Schedule time to check in with each child daily. Make sure there is sufficient time to identify an individual child’s needs or concerns.
8. Schedule a family play date with the family each week.
9. Include spiritual and community service activities in your family’s life to give back to your community and support your child’s moral growth.
10. Laugh lots! Celebrate all that is good in your life by expressing daily gratitude.

Parent Support for a Healthy Balance of Activities

As you model healthy growth and balance in your life, you can support your family’s healthy balance. Your children can also become less stressed and more appreciative of all that is good in their lives.

Safety Plans for High-Risk Kids

As our students become more anxious with home and school challenges, we find that we become fearful about their health and well-being. Some children will demonstrate their anxieties and stress by having nightmares, not eating, over-eating, sleeping too much, spending hours on screens, or isolating. As parents, it is our job to try and understand what is troubling our children and seek support when needed. We should not be afraid to ask for help. The longer we ignore or avoid a problem, the more frustrated and troubled our child may become.

How to Solve a Problem

Here is a sample script and worksheet you can use with your child to identify and troubleshoot a possible problem.

Children Own Their Solutions

The sample script and worksheet provide an example of how we can support our children’s healthy development on their terms and according to their personal growth needs. Once we entrust our children with taking responsibility for their own actions and outcomes, their learning is more significant. Our children are more confident in their personal growth challenges. And our kids have the skills and abilities to be in charge of their lives and life choices.

Kids Become Junior Environmentalists

Kids are excellent idea generators when it comes to the future. They can contribute to solutions with actions in their home environment.  Kids can do their part to impact largescale problems like waste.

Limiting Waste

There is a lot of waste at school. Snack food wrappers, utensil waste, food packaging, milk cartons, partially consumed food. ALL of it is thrown away after single consumption.  Most snack items that kids bring to school also include unnecessary packaging.  Kids do their best to throw their wrappers and waste away, but none of them are recycled.

Single use consumption is a big problem at school when it comes to food.  It is important to talk to your kids about minimizing waste through the following suggested actions:

• Start at home.  When kids get involved in simple acts of making food instead of eating packaged food, they reduce waste from single use products.
• Many processed foods come with packaging that can be elimanated by cooking more and using less.
• Try hydrating by drinking water out of reusable containers, instead of plastic water bottles.
• Encourage kids to participate in sorting and recycling food materials at home.  Even at an early age, kids can part of a ripple effect that reduces waste.
• Kids can become junior environmentalists at school with little acts that help keep the school clean.
• Think about bringing snacks in reusable containers to school, instead of throwing packaging away.
• Reusable utensils and hydration containers are excellent resources instead of daily plastic water bottles for reducing waste at school.
• Have conversations about reusing lunch bags and plastic containers.

Reuseable Product Options

There are so many reusable plastic-free products targeted at youth. I was impressed with Target’s “Back to School” display and range of products that included cloth themed lunch bags, beeswax wrap, reusable lunch containers, and reusable hydro containers. You and your children can have fun picking out sustainable snack bags and reusable water bottles for the new school year.  You can also encourage your children to add stickers to personalize their items. The less single-use packaging that is brought to school, the better outcome for waste. Better habits at home create mindfulness and sustainability at school, which makes for a healthier environment.

Redesign and Reuse Packaging Art Project

Kids love to redesign cardboard and single use materials into TRASHY ART.  You and your children can collect paper packaging at home, including cardboard and plastic food containers to complete the following activity:

• Recycle a poster board and let kids create a montage of recycled materials including old toys.
• Get creative at building with non-standard materials.
• Use glue and tape to secure materials on the board.
• When the art board construction is completed, paint it with white primer to neutralize the background.
• Once it dries, use markers or various paint colors to pop some color into the new design.
• Give the art product a title or name to identify a playful theme that has been developed, like a skateboard park with cool jumps.
• Display the repurposed art before you just throw it away as waste.

Parenting an Athlete

by P J Caposey, Guest Blogger

I have a confession to make . . .

My oldest son was in fourth grade. I was a Superintendent of Schools in the neighboring district to where he was being raised and I previously served as principal in the district he was attending and in the same building as his youth basketball game was taking place.

The tournament was hotly contested, you know – as much as fourth grade basketball can be. Towards the end of the game, a player on the opposing team stepped out of bounds right in front of me. By this point in the game the crowd was really into it and in that moment, I yelled, “He is out of bounds,” and the referee stopped the game and asked me to leave.

I challenged that step saying I was not even critiquing the officiating, but in hindsight, he was right. Embarrassingly, the lead official at the tournament was a former student who told me to stay and not worry about it. I sat silently the rest of the game.

After the game, which my son’s team won in exciting fashion, he did not want to talk about the game. He wanted to talk about my behavior. I rationalized it away. Then, he basically unprompted, told me he hated whenever I yelled anything. My nine-year-old was showing more emotional maturity than I had been over the infancy of his athletic career.

He was nine. He was thinking about MY behavior. How embarrassing – for him, for me, for everybody.

Since then, I have done a lot of reading about how to attempt to raise athletes productively. To be clear, when I am talking about athletes here, I am not talking about the second-coming of Lebron James. I am talking about kids who are going to be athletically competitive and it is going to be a part of your family’s life.

I have learned, and try to deploy, three key techniques that have allowed my kids’ sports to be bonding agents for us and not an issue that creates stress and angst.

Be Quiet

I talk very little at my kids’ games anymore. There are times I cannot help it if someone is running wide open or I have watched the same mistake for the eighth time in a row. But, for the most part, I can go an entire game enjoying popcorn and a Diet Coke.

This is my number one recommendation. Be quiet. If you do not believe me ask any current junior high or high school athlete

The Ride Home Matters

I have learned this from other books, blogs, and social media posts. The ONLY thing your child needs to hear on the ride home is, “I loved watching you play today.” That is all you need to say. They do not need nor deserve coaching when they arrive in the car. They should find the car ride home to be a place of peace and reflection.

I read this a few times before I deployed the strategy. Then, I did. My kids had no idea how to react. In fact, it was too far in the other direction for them. A portion of our bond as child and parent was built around athletics. Going from 100 to 0 was not good for them.

Now, I always try to remember to tell them that I loved watching them play. Then, I will follow it up with, “I have a little coaching for you if you want it. Let me know when you are ready.” Sometimes, it is immediate. Other times, it is not until the ride home is over, shower complete, and snack eaten before they ask.

This works for us, and the car ride home is a safe space. I remember after a particularly rough ‘invite-only’ camp six hours away we had crossed two state lines before I was asked for any feedback. A few years prior, he would have known my thoughts before we ever hit the highway.

Accountability, Always

My kids will not be professional athletes. They will be spouses, employees, and bosses. There are lessons to be learned through athletics that supersede wins, losses, points, and assists. The number one lesson I try to help them with is not allowing them to BCD after a game or practice. BCD stands for Blame (someone or something else), Complain (about their difficult circumstances), and Defend (their own behavior). This three-step process intentionally or unintentionally removes all ownership and responsibility from the athlete and places it with teammates, coaches, and outside circumstances.

BCD is not something I tolerate from my kids after athletics. My perspective is that in life there will always be an excuse or something to blame, but the very best leaders, employees, friends, and spouses take responsibility and are problem solvers instead of problem admirers.

I am dogmatic about this. My kid can score zero points all season and still be a great teammate and that will prepare him or her for their adult life. Scoring 5 goals in a game and then blaming teammates or a coach for a loss or complaining about the officiating is not a recipe for future success.

The bottom line is that many of us are raising athletes that will never even play at the collegiate level. Remembering that allows us to focus our own behaviors on the relationships we are fostering with our kids and the positive lessons we are attempting to teach them.

P J Caposey’s Biography

PJ Caposey is a dynamic speaker and a transformational leader and educator. PJ began his career as an award-winning teacher in the inner-city of Chicago and has subsequently led significant change in every administrative post he has held. PJ became a principal at the age of 28 and within three years was able to lead a small-town/rural school historically achieving near the bottom of its county to multiple national recognitions. After four years, PJ moved to his current district, Meridian CUSD 223, as superintendent and has led a similar turnaround leading to multiple national recognitions for multiple different efforts.

PJ is a best-selling author and has written eight books for various publishers. His work and commentary have been featured on sites such as the Washington Post, NPR, CBS This Morning, ASCD, Edutopia, the Huffington Post, and was featured in a Global Leaders Forum thinkpiece alongside the likes of General Petraeus and General McChrystal. He works in the Education Department of two universities and in a myriad of capacities with the Illinois Principal’s Association including Principal Coach and author of the first complete stack of MicroCredentials offered in Illinois.

You can find him on most social media platforms with the handle @MCUSDSupe or his name PJ Caposey. His website www.pjcaposey.com also archives many speeches, blogs, podcasts, and articles for your review.