BEST Ways to Communicate with Families as a Teacher

Wondering how to communicate with families as a teacher? You’re in the right place.

I’ve taught all grades from kindergarten through Grade 8, and I know that the ways and the frequency at which you communicate with parents can vary.

The way you communicate with parents varies based on:

• the age of your students
• your personal communication style
• your employer (whether you work for a public school or a private school there are rules and regulations about how you communicate with families as a teacher)

Assuming you know the rules of where you teach, I’m going to give you helpful guidance on parent communication by grade level.

There’s no one right way to manage your parent communication with parents. This will help you:

• Keep parents informed
• Keep you sane
• Prevent and handle difficult parents, should the issue arise

I’m going to simplify the parent-communication process for you, and share you the best ways to do it, depending on the grade you teach.

Setting Up Your Parent Communication Record

Don’t worry if you aren’t truly setting this up at the very start of the year. If you haven’t put this into place yet, it can be done at any time throughout the year – better later than never

1. Set up a parent communication folder

Get a cheap binder from the dollar store, with dividers for each child. This way you can easily access their file.

In each file, you are going to keep:

• the questionnaire that you will have their parents fill out (if you choose to do one)
• a record of communication with their parents

2. Send home a questionnaire for the parents to fill out

*This is best done at the start of the school year, or when a new teacher starts mid-year. If you didn’t do this at the start of your time with the class, then I would skip this for now, but keep it in mind for next time.*

You can send home a questionnaire regardless of grade. My daughter’s teacher sent one home for Grade 7 (12 years old.)

Questionnaires give the parents an opportunity to share:

• their child’s strengths
• any concerns they have
• what holidays they celebrate as a family
• any allergies

Pro Tip: Don’t be surprised if not all the parents send the questionnaire back right away – or at all. I had to send a few reminders. Even then I didn’t receive them all but the ones I received helped a lot.

3. Send home Work Folders to be Signed

Monthly (or weekly – whatever frequency you choose) work folders are a great way to keep parents up to date on the work that their child is going, and what grades they are receiving.

Simply put all your students work into a folder, and send it home to be signed. Parents are responsible for looking for the work, and signing to say that they’ve seen it.

It takes some organization on your part, but when put into place- you should have less questions when report card period rolls around.

It also shows that you’ve done an important piece of your job by ensuring that parents are reviewing their child’s work and grades.

My daughter’s teacher used work folders for Grade 7 (age 12) but it can be done at any age or grade level.

Ways to Keep Parents Informed Throughout the Year

1. Email

As a teacher, I found email communication to be the easiest. Parents emailed me if they felt the need to, and vice versa.

I also sent out a monthly class newsletter (more on that below) to keep them informed through email.

One thing with using email to talk to parents is that you need to set boundaries. You don’t want parents to feel that they have access to you all day long.

I recommend having designated “office hours” each day that you reply to emails. Outside of those times, you don’t check or reply to emails. (This is a huge part of teacher work-life balance.)

Pros and Cons of Using Email to Communicate with Parents

• It can be hard to decipher tone, so it has its limitations. Conversations becoming more complicated or conflicted should move to phone
• It’s easy. Shooting off an email is way faster than having to find a time to call, dialling a number, etc

2. Phone and In-Person Chats

Regardless of which communication methods you use (newsletter, communication app, email) there are inevitably going to be some phone and in-person chats throughout the year.

For some parents, you’ll almost never need to chat with them on the phone. With others, you may need to chat with them weekly.

Be open to phone chats and in-person meets as needed, but make sure you’re drawing a line to maintain work-life balance because it can get really time consuming if you let it.

3. Communication apps

Parent-teacher communication apps can be used to:

✅ Send private messages to parents
✅ Send group announcements out to all parents

Some examples of apps you could use:

• Seesaw – best for younger grades, because it allows you send photos
• Remind – text only. Reminders you send will go straight to parent’s phone or email (depending on what they selected) you can send either group or private individual message.

I’ve used both Seesaw and Remind, they both work well. I would probably go for Remind if you haven’t used an app before, it keeps things really simple and the parents receive the info as a text (so they’re not likely to miss it.)

Pros and Cons of Using Apps to Communicate with Parents

• In order for using communication apps to be effective, you need every parent to sign up for the communication from it. There are sometimes a lot of stragglers who don’t sign up, and you need to keep reminding them.

In a nutshell, parent communication apps are a good way to go. It’s easy, it maintains your privacy, and it keeps parents involved.

Monthly class newsletter

Sending home a newsletter every month keeps the parents in the loop about:

• what you’re learning about at school (curricular expectations being covered)
• important reminders
• any events or important dates coming up

Pros and Cons of a Class Newsletter

• Newsletters are a nice way to keep parents up to date with what’s happening. They can be time-consuming for you, which is why I recommend using a template and just editing it every month.

Pro Tip: Where I live, class newsletters need to be reviewed by admin before they are sent home. Check to see if a similar rule exists where you live. If so, its just another step you’d have to make sure you complete every month.

Social media classroom page

I’ve seen some teachers start a Facebook group and invite all the parents to it as a way to keep them engaged and informed about things happening in class.

This would not be recommended where I live (in Canada), likely due to privacy concerns.

The teacher union and the school board would argue against having a classroom Facebook group, because it:

• blurs boundaries
• opens up the possibility for parents (or their kids) checking out your personal Facebook profile. Unless you lock your profile or are good at keeping things very private, then they may find things that are personal

Pros and Cons of Using a Facebook Group to Communicate with Parents

• A Facebook group could foster classroom community among the parents and is an easy way to keep them informed, and engaged. However, there

Google Classroom

Google classroom to give feedback and can also select an option to have results emailed directly to parents.

Google Classroom isn’t so much a way for you to talk or message parents, but its a way for them to get access to some of their kids results, which is part of communication and keeping them informed.

There are also AI tools to streamline the Google Classroom

Classroom website

Having a classroom website may be for the more tech-savvy teacher, but wouldn’t personally be my favourite way to keep families informed.

For one, it would need to be set up and constantly updated – that’s a lot of work for something that you don’t even know how frequently parents are going to visit.

Pro Tip: There are many ways to use AI to streamline a lot of the data-sharing and parent communication. Of course, you want to keep your communication authentic. But when you have upwards of 30 students, you’re doing yourself a disservice to not look into how to speed things up. Read my post on game-changer ways to use AI in the classroom.

High School

A lot of the of elementary parent communication tools aren’t really feasible anymore at the high school level, because students typically have a handful of teachers each term.

For the most part, parent communication will go ack to simple email and phone calls if needed.

However, you could set it up something a bit more organized and formal if you really want to go above and beyond.

The only ideas from above I would recommend for the highschool level is Remind. You can create as many classes as you want, and send out reminders to families.

Pro Tip: While communicating with families at the high school level is still important, there should be an increased focus on students handling their responsibilities and being an advocate for themselves.

Rules of Thumb About Communicating with Parents

Here are some things to keep in mind about parent-teacher communication, and making it work for you as well as the parents

✅ Email is best for quick, simple communication. For a more serious matter, it’s better to move to the phone or in person

✅ Whatever method of parent communication you choose, make sure that it’s sustainable for you. Parent communication is a big part of your job as a teacher, but it shouldn’t spill over into other important parts of your job. Don’t fall into the trap of daily communication with any parent. It’s important that you choose a communication method that you can easily maintain without overwhelm

✅ When communicating with parents, always re-state the common goal. Remember, both you and te parent want the same things – to help their child/student in question.

✅ Use a growth mindset when discussing children’s strengths and needs with their parents

✅ For difficult parents, consider CCing your principal on email communication, or having as a 3rd party in phone or in-person conversations

✅ Show parents that you are open, willing and happy to communicate with them. At the same time, maintain your boundaries so that people don’t encroach on your much-needed personal time.

✅ In the very rare circumstance where a parent becomes belligerent, then seek support from your administrator or union immediately (this basically never happens, but if it does – get help.)

Communication with Parents as a Teacher FAQ

Here are the most commonly asked questions about parent-teacher communication

How can a teacher communicate with families?

Teachers can communicate with families in so many ways, but its important for them to choose a method that fits with their schedule, maintains their privacy and keeps parents informed.

How do teachers start conversations with parents?

Teachers may email parents to set up a time to talk on the phone, call outright, or simply have conversations through email. Teachers will rarely text parents with their personal cellphone number, and they should never use social media to privately message parents.

How should an educator communicate with families about their child’s day?

Teachers should definitely avoid communicating daily with parents, as it’s important to maintain work-life balance. Depending on the age of the kids though, it’s possible that they may need to touch base a couple of times a week.

Final Thoughts on How to Communicate with Families as a Teacher

I hope that this article has shined the light on some rules of thumb and ideas for how to communicate with families as a teacher. Communication with parents can be a time-consuming (and sometimes nerve-wracking) part of our job, but organization goes a really long way.

There are so many benefits to fostering good relationships with parents. When you communicate with parents effectively and keep them in the loop, they relax and trust you more. This tends to make them and the kids more engaged, leaving the parents with less questions (they challenge you less) and your job easier!