Oftentimes, teachers feel that their schedules are so busy with planning, grading, and teaching that there is no time left for family engagement. However, this is an integral part of the role of the teacher and also a part of teacher evaluation. Both SPU and the Danielson framework says that teachers will "communicate and collaborate with families and educational stakeholders," requiring that teachers communicate "on a regular basis" regarding student progress in class. Sometimes, teachers only call to report bad news or behavior issues; however, this does not mean that teachers are "promoting student learning." Family engagement is a careful balance of communicating progress and areas of growth so that parents or stakeholders are truly "collaborators" in a student's education.
I have two examples of parent engagement from different perspectives. First, I had a student who did not show up to our class for the first four days. I knew him from the previous year and explained to him that I had not seen him in class yet, and if he was not present, I would call his parents. He promised he would be there, but failed to show up. I called his dad and explained the situation. The parent was disappointed, but also asked to participate in the solution. He instructed us to call him as soon as the student was tardy to class. And the next day, the student was in our classroom! He only tried to skip again one time, and we called the dad and the student has been present every day since.
Another example is was with a student who has inconsistent effort in class. When I read his first summative assessment, I was surprised by the level of writing and I called home to share with mom how impressed I was; it was clear that he worked hard and tried his best. His mom was really thankful for the good news about her son, and so was the student. Since I made that phone call, he has given more consistent effort in class.
From this experience, I learned an important piece about family engagement and standard 7. Often, first year teachers struggle with classroom management, but family engagement takes only a little bit of extra time and can highly impact learning environment. I had one student change his attendance and another student change his effort in class all by making a phone call home. I know that I am beginning to see the impacts of this emerging competence because I have a strategy to impact student behavior and learning in class.
The reality is that two phone calls is not enough. Because I have seen how effective family engagement can be, I want to create a system where students can get positive feedback to their parents. It is unrealistic to call each of my students once a month, but I think it might be a good idea to write three good news postcards or even make three phone calls for good news one day a week. I will continue to use parent phone calls as a step in my consequences, explaining to students that I want their parent's support in finding solutions. But I know that effective family engagement cannot be limited to just behavior phone calls. I hope that this system of positive phone calls will help me continue to build a positive and productive classroom.
