Extra! Extra! Read All About School

Don Jacobs

We all know that regular communication is the best way to encourage teamwork and trust. But keeping communication flowing from teacher to parents can be hard—there is so much to tell and so little time. Here is one tactic that is both informative and easy.

A weekly gazette (or newsletter) might be the single best tool to communicate to parents important classroom information. Typically, a weekly newsletter will contain information about

  1. test and homework schedules,
  2. special events,
  3. classroom activities,
  4. birthdays,
  5. and student accomplishments.

Making sure student names and accomplishments are mentioned each week encourages parents to read newsletters on a regular basis. Occasionally you may want to share a poem or story written by a student. You may want to feature information about one student each week. Check out the example on this page for inspiration.

Newsletters can be saved on computer disk and updated from year to year. Desktop publishing lets you publish professional looking newsletters with little effort. For step-by-step instructions for creating your newsletter, visit our website and then choose the Teaching section under the Complete Listing of Articles and look for the title of this article under "General". Click on Newsletter Instructions pdf document (To view and/or print this document, you will need Adobe® Acrobat® Reader™.)

Of course, there are a few cautions to consider:

Do not use your newsletter to "fuss’’ at parents.

If you are having a problem with some students, contact their parents directly; do not tell all the parents through the newsletter that you are disappointed about some issue.

Take extra care to make sure you proofread newsletters thoroughly before sending them home. You do not want to get marked down for spelling errors.

Even a one-page newsletter will make your communication stock go way up with parents. Who knows—you may eventually need to add a business section!

Reprinted from Teacher to Teacher, Volume 5, Issue 3.

Used with permission from BJU Press. For permission to reproduce this article, please write BJU Press.