· Very few teachers are prepared to deal with parents, especially those who assume the role of a critic. As a building principal, what action might you take to help teachers deal effectively with parents on the telephone, at conferences and through email, social media or other communications?
As the forums in which interactions take place expand the importance of open communication becomes more and more important in the educational setting. Through the development and implementation of professional development focusing on communication between teachers and parents, learning outcomes can be positively impacted. Programming can be developed as either formal training allowing for practice and professional collaboration or informal conversational interactions between staff and administration. As lines of communication change forms (social media, email, texting) there must be allowances for both training in the tools and established guidelines in which communication is expected to take place. As training must be reflective of new trends and expectations, administrators must encourage teachers to communicate not only more often but also for more purposes. In the past teachers have been encouraged to make both positive and negative contact with parents but now, with communication tools changing forms, communication is instant and should be directed toward both parents and students. The goal of communication should be to establish an environment of openness and education must be viewed as a team effort between the parent, the student and the school staff.
ReplyDeleteCommunication is extremely important in the education setting. The parent's communication with the teacher is the primary contact that the parent has with the school. Most information a parent gets about the school and their student comes from the teacher. One bad experience with poor communication between a parent and teacher can create a critic of the schools for years to come. The best way to counter a parent who is a critic is to try and prevent them from becoming one. As a building principal, it is very important to stress the need for good communication skills. Communication must be a two-way street for it to be successful. One action I could take is to incorporate parent/teacher communication skills into the new teacher hiring process. Have candidates demonstrate how they would communicate with parents both written and verbal. Conduct a portion of the interview over the phone, to guage phone skills. This obviously wouldn't cover all teachers but it could help with the newer, less experienced ones. More in the ways of needs to be done. Because we live in a society that wants everything done right now it is important for teachers to utilize the technologies that are out there. Teachers can be a part of a professional development activity that gives them knowledge about the use of social networking sites, websites, etc. These types of technologies can give parents up-to-date information they desire. One of the biggest issue critics can have with a teacher is about grading. Most schools utilize some sort of computer grading program and many also have a parent component to them. Parents then have access to their son/daughter's grades. Nothing irritates parents more than a teacher not having up-to-date grades posted. As a principal, I will insist that grades need to be current. As a building principal, I can institute parent outreach activities like donuts with dad/mom, open up the gymnasium and other facilities for family use, ask parents to be involved in school-wide celebrations.
ReplyDeleteDealing with critics (especially parents) is extremely hard to do for any staff member or teacher. As a building principal, there are several things that I would do to assist my staff in dealing with parent conflict. As a school, it is important to remember that parents (and families) are our most vocal critics and champions in the community. With this in mind, it is extremely important that teachers keep open lines of communication with parents of their students. If communication is frequent and keeps parents updated, conflicts can be handled much easier. In my time in the classroom, I always found it easier to deal with an angry parent if I'd already discussed positive and negative choices their student had made frequently and throughout the year. I'd encourage my staff to make this same communication. As principal, I would further encourage my staff by making sure they are tracking every interaction with parents of their students. This tracking can serve to be evidence that unhappy parents have been updated frequently and in a variety of methods regarding the progress of their student. Lastly, when a parent is critical of a teacher, they are often lashing out to the teacher for issues that may be much more complex or not even school related. I would consistently emphasize the fact that teachers can not take conflict, or the words said by a parent during a conflict, personally. The teacher must keep a calm, but firm tone with the parent and can't resort to the same tone or volume as the angry parent.
ReplyDeletePrevention is the key here. The question is what the best way to go about it is. In an ideal world without time or money constraints we would provide intensive in-service training on customer service, conflict resolution, and other related topics centered around communication. However, this is not always practical. I would propose that there are basically two groups of teachers; new socially inexperienced but technologically advance and older socially experienced and technologically challenged. If we were to join the two together we could have the best of both worlds, a new teacher with ideas of how situations have been handled in the past and tech skills and veteran teachers who have experienced almost every possible type of parent, has learned how to work with them, and skills to transfer them into e-mail, social sites, web sites, chat room, texting, and support to try whatever new comes along. We could create a double mentor situation where a new and senior teacher mentored each other, bringing their experiences together. This could be done during prep time or portions of in-service days costing the school nothing but time. Our district used a setup similar to this when we were required to create a teacher web page as part of the district site. It was a great experience and brought everyone together for a common good.
ReplyDeleteToo often, principals require teachers to communicate with parents, but provide no guidelines or instruction that would assist the teacher with what can be a potentially difficult exchange if the reaction of the parent is particularly critical. In order to empower the faculty to utilize parents as a frontline support rather than a last chance option, they should provide a significant amount of professional development time prior to the start of each school year to how to contact parents. Principals can provide a standard template for all staff answering phones at the school. They might provide templates or practice scripts for a variety of situations to the teachers for them to utilize during phone conversations until they feel comfortable making parent calls. A standard parent conference agenda would assist teachers in helping parents and students solve problems rather than get embroiled in conflict. The principal could also provide videos and skits of examples versus non examples of things to say when talking to parents. The advent of new media such as email and social networking platforms requires the communication savvy principal and district to have a policy regarding its use. Some districts do not allow any student information to be disseminated through email as all emails are public records. It is important for teachers, especially new teachers to understand these guidelines. Finally, the principal needs to be clear about those occasions in which the teacher is expected to make contact with parents (possibly regarding absences or grades) and when the school administrator will be responsible for communication (possible dress code or discipline violations).
ReplyDelete• When going to college to become an educator not one of the courses really goes over how to communicate with parents. At least in my college they didn't. It was just something you learned along the way after trial and error. Maybe you said something to a parent that you quickly regretted so you put that on the back burner of your mind to never say again. Or vice versa you stated or explained something very sufficiently so you want to remember to keep using it with other parents. I think it would be great as a principal to organize some workshops and professional developments on communication. Especially for first year teachers. I think during these trainings we could have experienced teachers share some of their ideas on how to communicate effectively with parents. Also it would be good to have some role playing done. Then teachers could have some idea on how a real conference or phone call could be conducted. As for emails and letters I might have first year teachers let me or an experienced teacher who I knew communicated well with parents, look them over before they were sent out until I felt that person was sufficient in their communication skills.
ReplyDeleteAssuming I had a community relations director or similar position on staff, I would work with this individual to
ReplyDeletea. Develop professional development sessions to address effective communication with parents. These sessions would include pre-service training for teachers new to teaching and new to the building. Experienced teachers would be used as resource contacts. A special staff development session for all staff would be held prior to the first scheduled parent-teacher conference day of the school-year. Tips (including role play) on how to identify and address the different types of parent criticism would be presented. Topics to also include: when and how to end a conversation with an overly aggressive parent and when to include a witness to the conversation.
b. Develop and monitor a school intranet wherein teachers post their productive resolution of difficult communication situations with parents (assuring that names of families are not revealed).
c. Review and update the school’s policy for addressing parent-teacher disagreements and seek input from staff and parents for suggestions for improvements.
d. Include in teacher newsletters examples of the use of active listening in dealing with parent criticism.
e. Provide staff with copies (electronic) of general information sent to parents explaining how to have a productive meeting with teachers.
Parental communication is important to any school-community relations program. The communication needs to allow for an ongoing exchange of information between parents and teachers. The principal can assist teachers in communicating effectively with the parents by providing professional development opportunities for the teachers. Role model sessions where veteran teachers work with new teachers on how to address parental concerns and criticisms. During staff meetings, staff can review real life situations, brainstorm options and seek feedback on their interactions with parents. The principal can also serve as a role model for the teacher by engaging parents in conversations about the school and their children. The best practice is for teachers and the principal is to communicate frequently with the parents, providing news on class activities and highlighting their children’s successes. By the teacher communicating often, the parents are used to hearing from the school, feel engaged in their child’s education and are more open to working collaboratively with the school. The regular use of email or social media sites provide avenues for communication between the school and parents as do opportunities for parents to visit the school and the child’s classroom. Most districts use online grading programs where parents can access their child’s coursework and grades. Teachers must keep the grades current. The principal must make the guidelines and expectations on communication clear to the teachers; when they are expected to make contact with parents and when the administration will make the contact. The district’s policy on communication must be shared with the parents as well. Society now expects instant feedback; however a balance must be struck between the need to respond timely to parental questions/concerns and the needs of educating the students. Teachers should let parents know when is the best time to contact him or her and respond in a timely fashion.
ReplyDeleteKelly's suggestion of role playing what "good" communication should look like is both practical and effective. It is also an excellent way to tap into the expertise of your faculty and staff and provides an opportunity to learn together. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteMarie H. says:
ReplyDeleteThe action that I, as a building principal, might take to help teachers deal effectively with, (critical), parents on the telephone, at conferences, and through email, social media, and other communications would begin with guiding the parents and teachers into a partnership for the sake of the child(ren) that attend school in the building. Parents must have guidelines to be able to respect and understand the rules of the classroom. The parents must be given a means of monitoring the behavior, academic progress, and personal growth of their child. There needs to be a system of exchange of information for both the parent and the teacher. This means that telephones, paper, and Internet should be sources required by all involved in one capacity If not all. Also, the child must not be left out of the loop for an exchange of information pertaining to both the parent and teacher. The more united a front that the teacher and parent can show to the child, the better the behavior and learning will be for all involved. A critical parent was once a criticized child. Once a parent can be shown that the full actions of his or her child is not a total reflection of their child rearing skills, the more open the parent will be towards creating a more positive environment rather than a critical one. Get and keep everyone involved. As our society progresses, our parents are of a younger age. Many were not afforded the full value of education themselves and therefore, have no respect for the situations that today’s teachers have to face. As building principal, I would make sure that there are enough days afforded in the education calendar to get parents involved, so that they can see that their child at home is not the same child in the education system, with or without provocation. Lines of communication need to stay open and active!
This may be helpful to some of you. I got this from a professor in a classroom mgmt class while completing my undergraduate at GVSU:
ReplyDeleteProcedure for handling parents phone complaints
Tell me more, help me understand
Never explain, reason or defend what happened.
Do not evaluate say, “Let’s see if I got it.”
Once they start hearing they realize how irrational they are being.
“What are your thoughts?”
Sometimes this cycles and when they run out of energy they slow down talking.
Would you like my thoughts on how I have seen this handled?
What can we do together to work on this?
Refuse to discuss other children to parents.
It is your desire to do the best by the student, they have opportunity to learn from their experiences.
*Taken from lecture notes Dr. Williams ED 310 class 11-11-04
I feel as though many of the parents in my school are intimidated by conferences with their child's teacher. I think a principal should make it a point to meet with as many parents and teacher together as possible to put parents at ease and show their support. I think it is important to teachers to know that their principal supports them in their efforts to communicate with parents. As well as the parents should know that the principal is their as well to hear their concerns and answer any questions pertaining to the school issues.
ReplyDeleteI have had many run ins with various parents. When you teach as many different kids as I do, it is envitable that something is going to go wrong and you are going to have to do something about it.
ReplyDeleteWhen our school sets ground rules for parent contact, we are to call a minimum of 2 times. We are to call once during the day and once at night. If after 4 times of trying we have still not reached the parents, we are then required to turn over that information to our administation.
Irate parents is not something that I am afraid of. I have been subjected to some of the harshest accusation. I was told that I even caused one ladies child to have to seek counseling because I gave him such bad grade that he came off of principals list for one quarter. She was so busy accusing me of doing something wrong and never once acknowledged that it was her sons irresponsibilty that cost him his grade.
It is always great whent the principal supports his staff. In the above case, the prinicpal backed me one hundred percent. We as teachers are subjected most days to disrespect and defiance that we really should not have to put up with the likes of being subjected to it by the child's parents.
I find that to be one of the most frustrating parts of being a teacher. Each parent thinks that his or her child should be the focus of your attention at all times of the day. With that said, they often feel that an immediate response to their situation is on the top of your to-do list. Knowing this, I would want to set up a form of communication that was effiecient an covienient for the teachers to use. With the amount of technology available, I would research my choices and choose a technology that would expidite communication between teachers and parent, that wouldn't take too much time for the teacher to accomplish.
ReplyDeleteI first ask my teachers to get to know parent and family well. For that purpose I would encourage him/her to send introductory letter to home and make home visits before the school year starts. Next, I would advise them to make their first phone call for something positive. another advise should be to document everything and communicate that with the parents on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteLISTEN, AND THEN LISTEN SOME MORE
ReplyDeleteDocument the child's problem behavior and your conversations about it.
If you want parents to help you get the homework turned in, you need to tell them how often it hasn't been, because their child is not likely to 'fess up.
A lot of kids, if they are not doing well, will hide information from their parents. So the parent is missing information. The parent's tendency is to defend the child and assume the teacher is wrong. Then the teacher gets defensive. The solution is concrete evidence.
Don't talk to a parent—or write—when you're mad. Never ever reply immediately to an angry e-mail. Wait. Do not delay more than 24 hours, but give it time. And then call them instead of writing an answer. Talk to other teachers who work with the child.
Often, a student with academic problems in one class is finding success in other subjects. If so, you want to be able to let the parents know. That may help them feel less defensive when you describe their child's performance in your class.
Decide what you want to come out of the meeting. Don't let the only goals at the meeting be the parents' goals. They may just come in and yell at you because they think you've been unfair. Your goals should be child-centered—a clear plan of action.
Parents like to be kept informed about: School Responsibilities; How to get the most out of school website- Checking grades and attendance online, etc.
Student expectations for classes, grades, homework, supply list at the beginning of the class, tutoring hours, parent home visits, directing parents to fruitful resources, websites so they could help their child, sending letters regarding informing the standardized tests before.
Be prepared, always print out the student records, do not start with negative feedback, have plenty of work samples, especially if you are going to talk about an area of weakness, PLUS, have some specific suggestions ready for the parent when they ask "What can I do to help?" Remember...you are the instructional expert.
ReplyDelete