The Importance Of School And Home Communication

“The ultimate goal for school-home communication is high standards for student achievement. Communication is effective when it contributes to parent and family involvement toward that end.” (AFT, 2012. p.55). In schools there are a plethora of steps that can be implemented to improve this type of dialogue. School and home communication is a big issue in many schools. Parent and teacher schedules are often times very hectic. So what can we do to make this more of a priority? My school does a great job as we are very flexible in meeting the parents around their work schedule. We continue to call home almost daily regarding any issues the student might be having. Teachers send point sheets home that discuss behavior as well as any assignments

Working together and making parent involvement a priority can be done by having a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) in my school. We work with children with special needs and the benefits of having this I believe would be great in our school. In the article “13 Ways a Parent Teacher Association Can Help a Student with Special Needs” by Karen Wang she describes what a PTA does. She writes, “The PTA does whatever the school needs to be done. Some PTA activities do not cost anything except volunteer hours, for example, providing volunteers to help students check out library books, or to help the office staff check in late students and deliver lost lunchboxes in the morning. Most PTA activities require funding, especially academic enrichment and extracurricular support. For these efforts, the PTA raises funds through carnivals, silent auctions, book fairs, membership drives, corporate sponsorship, grants from private foundations and other creative methods.” (Wang, 2015) This would be a great to have in our building as it would lay the foundation to increasing parent involvement and making communication much easier. I feel some of these activities are things families can participate in together. I feel if parents ran these event turnout may be much better than if the school was to do it alone. School staff and Parents would collaborate on the most essential needs to that building and make it more of a priority. PTA members would assist teachers in running events, tutoring students, and offering parent to parent support by communicating with other parents by answering questions or concerns they may have about the