Summertime is winding down for schools across the country. After vacation with family and friends, the excitement of summer camp, or just quiet relaxation, the fall semester is already underway for many of you.
Each school year has a predictable rhythm that you can use to plan family communication needs ahead of time. Here are a few general signposts to help map out the school year ahead:
Start of the School Year (July-September)
The start of the school year is a little hectic for everyone, your teachers especially. The best thing you can do for your staff during this season is to intentionally make room for family communication.
You may even want to encourage principals to set specific blocks of time for family engagement so that teachers aren’t always tasked with fitting it into otherwise busy days. There are plenty of resources out there on kicking off family communication—for example, the Flamboyan Foundation, a national education and policy nonprofit, has an entire resource center built around educator welcome calls.
Mid-Year Slump (October-December)
When the first rounds of grades are due, support your educators as they split their time between teaching and grading. After all, grades aren’t the only form of important feedback; family communication is just as important, if not more so.
A Time for New Beginnings (January-March)
Harness this natural restart and empower your teachers to set family engagement goals for the second semester, especially now that they know most, if not all, of their families and their needs.
Finishing Strong (April-May)
The end of the school year is full of celebration. Awards and accolades are rolling in this time of year, so it’s a natural time to focus on student-centered communication. This can start small. Did a student who barely scraped by in December end the year with a C average? Find a way to laud them for their hard work, like a positive phone call home, so they see their growth being noticed and celebrated.
Building a thorough family communication plan is more of a marathon than a race. By dividing the upcoming year into stages, it’ll be easier to center positive, proactive communication in everything that you do.
One question for you
1. What's one new communication initiative you want to try this upcoming school year?
Email us at editor@schoolceo.com or book a time on our calendar and let us know.
Two resources to help
1. SchoolCEO Conference is right around the corner and to celebrate, we're giving away one FREE ticket! To enter to win, share a picture of you with all of your SchoolCEO magazines on either LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or X and tag either @apptegy or @schoolceo. The person with the MOST SchoolCEO magazines wins—and even just participating will get you $100 off your ticket. That’s just in time for our price increase on August 23rd!
2. School districts everywhere are scrambling to find qualified substitutes for absent teachers. Some districts have turned to marketing campaigns to fill these vacancies. Here’s how Illinois’ Genoa-Kingston CUSD #424 launched a multichannel campaign that led to a 20% increase in their sub pool over just three months! —Read How to Recruit Substitute Teachers
Three ideas to get you thinking
1. “But to be really engaged, parents and guardians need to do more than passively receive school communication; they need to actively participate in the conversation.” —The Power of Parent-Teacher Communication for Student Success
2. “The truth is that when students feel included, they feel safe. And when they feel included and safe, they are excited to come to school.” —San Juan Unified’s Director of Family Engagement and Partnership Development Amy Rovai Gregory in Building Connections, Building Capacity
3. SchoolCEO research has shown how undervalued teachers and non-certified staff are when it comes to brand promotion. Here's how district can successfully equip their staff members to be strong brand ambassadors. —Listen to "Brand Ambassadors" on SchoolCEO Podcast