/)
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.
Subscribe to our newsletter at https://www.schoolceo.com/subscribe-now/.
Visit us at schoolceo.com and connect with SchoolCEO on LinkedIn or X/Twitter @school_ceo.
If you have a story you’d like to share with the SchoolCEO team, email us at eileen@schoolceo.com or schedule a call.
SchoolCEO is powered by Apptegy, the maker of the leading K-12 communications and brand management platform.
Script
Welcome to the SchoolCEO podcast. I’m your host, Eileen Beard. Let’s review how to make two-way work for your district and your families to keep them engaged.
But first, let’s review why it’s so important. To be really engaged in their child’s education, parents don’t just need to be informed. They need to actively participate. Increased family participation has been shown to improve student performance. And families that are engaged tend to be more satisfied customers. An effective two-way strategy helps achieve your mission and strengthens your brand.
But a lot of schools rely on in-person conversations. Your teachers’ back-and-forth conversations with families may be happening primarily at dedicated events like parent-teacher conferences. When parents are the only guardian in their household they are less likely to attend. Families living below the poverty threshold are also less likely to attend than those not living in poverty. And if a language barrier exists, in-person conversations can be more difficult to translate—not only will you need a translator, depending on the number of languages spoken in your students’ homes, you may need a small army of them. Now consider that many teachers are meeting parents simultaneously. A single Spanish language translator can’t sit with more than one teacher at a time.
Although in-person conversations are important, they can’t be the extent of your two-way conversations with families. Here are some considerations to make in order to implement or improve your digital two-way communication strategy.
First, Make it accessible. A two-way messaging system integrated with your app is easily accessible on the device that, according to 2024 data from Pew Research Center, 91% of us are carrying around in our pockets everyday.
Second, Make it more accessible. 27% of adults below the poverty level depend on mobile-only internet access. This is yet another argument for making two-way communication a feature of your school or district app. Otherwise, you limit some families’ ability to participate.
Third, Make it even more accessible. Your two-way platform needs to be language accessible. If auto translation isn’t an option, you once again limit some families’ ability to participate.
Fourth, Make it positive. The ease and accessibility of using a digital two-way communication platform means you can communicate with parents about more than grades and behavior. It allows you to step outside of disciplinary conversations to talk about what students are doing right.
Finally, Make it streamlined. Emails and texts are flooding your parents’ inboxes every day. Multiple apps can cause confusion. Don’t make them search through it all to talk to you because it can cause frustration and ultimately disengagement. If you use an app, USE AN APP. It will protect your data, protect your students and protect your parents’ quality of life.
You know, one thing we haven’t really touched on regarding streamlining two-way communication is how it can make the job easier on teachers and staff. By housing all parent and student communication on a single platform that is integrated with an app on their smartphones, and an app they are already using as an employee portal, too, you make two-way communication more accessible for them. Which means they are more likely to use it even when it’s not strictly necessary, for instance to share some positive news. And if you streamline two-way to a single platform, you can train teachers and staff on a single platform. Even hesitant employees should embrace it once they know how to use it.
Thanks for joining me.