Planning for the School Year: Building a Strong Parent Rapport Right off the Bat!

Parents can be their student's biggest advocate! It is so important to include the parents in their child's educational program. It is so important to build a good rapport with them, as they can be invaluable to reinforcing things that you are doing in the classroom at home AND provide insight to their child. We are all on the same team, so I like to try to get off to a good start with them!

At the beginning of the year, I like to:

• Call them! I like to call to introduce myself to them before the school year starts, especially if the student is new to you. This will be my second year with the Kinders, so a lot of my guys come from different pre-k programs. I also like to give them the opportunity to teach me about their child! I ask them some questions about their child, like if they have any health concerns/needs or allergies and what types of things motivate their child. This simple gesture helps you get off on the right foot with the parents AND helps you to know the student a little better than the information the IEP may give. 
• Ask them how they want to communicate! It is a blessing to make communication as convenient as possible for them. They have a lot on their hands! 
• Send out a teacher introduction letter. I send out a letter, telling them who I am, my credentials and teaching experience and how excited I am to be working with them and their child! I send this home on the first day of school
• Survey them. Along with my teacher letter, I send out a simple survey, asking the parents about their child. Enjoy this freebie (in PDF or Microsoft Word)!
• Hold a Back-to-School-Night! My school does this for all parents; we all meet together in the cafeteria and then break off into classrooms for more classroom-specific information. More on this later!

And some tips for throughout the year:

• Daily notes home 
• Parent Communication Book. Logging your communication is super important in special ed. It gives you a record to go back to, especially in sticky situations. I keep a binder of my communication with each parent. 
• Save your e-mails. My school system uses Outlook, which unfortunately deletes e-mails after a certain period of time. I used to print all of my e-mails but this is such a waste of paper! I heard this tip from someone at a mentoring class I was taking this spring: Have all of your received and sent e-mails forwarded to a Gmail account! Gmail has a huge amount of space for you to work with and a great search feature if you need to refer to a specific e-mail. 
• Monthly newsletters. Helps keep parents updates about what you are doing in class! 
• Have a resource guide readily available. A resource guide is GREAT to have handy, especially when parents have questions about different services and resources available to them.
• Make sure to include them into the IEP process. 
• Honor them for the holidays (Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa, Valentine's Day, Mother's & Father's Day). Make sure to have your little guys create something beautiful for them! 

It is so important to have clear communication with your students' parents. Not only do they feel included in their students day, but it will make things SO much easier!

Until next time!