The Importance of Communicating with Parents

I learned about the importance of communicating with parents the hard way.

In my first year of teaching, there was a boy in my class who was constantly disruptive. I’d speak with him outside of class time, and mostly ignore his disruptive behaviors during class time. One day, after I’d issued him several warnings for disturbing his peers while I was doing a lecture style class, I noticed that he’d taken off his shoes and was talking it apart, removing the insole, laces, etc. I asked him to wait for me outside the classroom (knowing that I was near the end of my lecture). He lifted a chair as if to throw it; at that point I sent him to the principal. Upon meeting with the parents, I learned that the student had been diagnosed with ADHD and had recently moved to India and been taken off medication. That did not excuse his behavior but I would have come up with other strategies to help him focus if I’d known this.

In my second year of teaching, a student was in danger of failing my grade 12 computer programming class. I was in communication with the mother off and on throughout the year explaining the lack of progress. The student paid someone to do his final project. His mother made excuses for him. Should I have been teaching the mother about the severity of cheating?

In my third year of teaching, I had a computer design class (using Sketchup and GIMP). One of the students in my class had done a poor job in one of his assignments. I made arrangements with him to redo the assignment. In the meantime, quarter report cards came along and the student had a D in my class. I did a good thing in letting the student redo the assignment. I FAILED IN INFORMING THE PARENTS about our arrangement. I failed even worst because she worked at the school and I could have easily mentioned it to her.

In that same year, I had a grade 12 student who though that my weekly computer class was dumb. I agree that a once weekly computer class taught in isolation was dumb but there was still learning to be done in our limited. He didn’t do classwork and got a C in the class. He was a senior who had A’s and B’s in all his other classes. His mother was shocked to receive his quarter report card; I should have notified her of the situation long before the end of the quarter.

Now, I keep a wiki for my classes where classwork and assignments are posted. I send letters home before major projects, especially if they might involve students working outside of school. I inform parents when their children haven’t submitted assignments, or when they seem to be having trouble achieving success in some aspect of the class. I email parents if students have an extension to complete tasks. I post comments and grades on Powerschool (even though I’m not a fan of the system). I’m planning to start Tech mornings once a month.

I recognize the importance of communicating with parents but I struggle with balancing student ownership/time management/self-motivation with parental motivation and management. I find this issue to be of particular importance in Asian cultures where parents and students are traditionally driven by grades and competition. In an effort to strike that balance, I make sure that I first speak with the student before bringing up any issue with parents, and depending on the situation, I give them a time frame for improvement before I contact parents.