Summary: 

Read Talking Back: Why Your District Needs a Two-Way Communication Strategy for more tips on beefing up yours. 

Check out SchoolCEO Magazine’s survey What Parents Want for more insights. 

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Script

Welcome to the SchoolCEO podcast. I’m your host, Eileen Beard. We know that strong family engagement can help districts solve a variety of challenges, from reducing chronic absenteeism to improving literacy. Not only that, engaged parents stay put in your schools. Engaged parents tell their neighbors all the things your schools are doing for their children. 

But to be really engaged in their child’s education, parents don’t just need to be informed. They need to actively participate. That’s where two-way communication comes into play—it’s the kind of communication that fosters collaboration with parents. 

But imagine you’re the parent of a high schooler, trying to stay in touch with six or seven different teachers. And each of those teachers uses a different platform to communicate with families—whether it’s email, text or one of dozens of parent-teacher communication apps. To keep track of your child’s progress, you have to download (and check) multiple apps—or worse, sort through hundreds of emails and text messages to find the ones related to school. And that’s just one child at one campus—what if you have two or three, all at different schools? With so many communication channels to keep up with, it’s no surprise that parents might lose track of even the most important conversations. 

So you might assume that the solution to these problems is less communication. You might assume two-way communication is just adding noise and so not worth it. But that’s not actually how parents see it. In fact, our “What Parents Want” survey found that families who receive more frequent school communication are actually likely to be more satisfied with their districts. So you don’t need to communicate less—you just need to communicate through fewer channels.

It’s best to avoid channels that families are already using for purposes other than school, like text or email. This way, parents don’t have to sift through hundreds of corporate marketing emails or texts from friends and family to find conversations with their child’s teachers.

Then there are apps. Letting teachers use their preferred apps to communicate also comes with headaches. As a school district, you are charged with protecting your students. Non-vetted communication softwares pose privacy and security risks. Data isn’t the only thing that needs to be protected. When two-way communication is a free-for-all, you have no way of monitoring all of the communication that takes place between staff and students. Safety concerns have actually prompted some states like Oklahoma to instate laws requiring school personnel communicate with students only through designated, school-approved platforms that automatically include parents in the conversation.

So how do you reduce your parents’ stress while better protecting your information and your students? By keeping all two-way communication in your district to a single platform. If all your teachers communicate through the same district-approved platform, it will be that much easier for families to stay informed and engaged with their child’s learning while ensuring that child’s safety. 

Two-way communication fosters strong school-family relationships where everyone has the chance to speak, listen and share ideas. Streamlining two-way communication to a single district-approved platform ensures a comfortable and safe place to do it. 

Thanks for joining me.