I like to communicate with the parents of my students not just when I'm concerned or am informing them of an event of some variety (test, convention, competition, etc), but also when a kid has done something particularly well. Sometimes the parents of these students hear from teachers all the time that their kid is fabulous, and some of them never hear these things from teachers. I had a student this year who was severely autistic and fails all his classes, and one day, he did a great job in class, so I called his mother to let her know. I told her what the student had done, and she said, "You must have the wrong student." It was heartbreaking, particularly when I assured her that I did not have the wrong student. I've been doing this via email, but this year, I acquired postcards very cheaply (250 of them from VistaPrint for 17 dollars).
It is harder to document, of course, the sending of postcards vs the sending of emails, and I do have to pay for stamps to send them. So why do this? I was raised by a grandmother who always said she appreciated a handwritten thank you note more than an email, even in this day and age, because it indicates the writer truly took the time to sit down and send you their thoughts. Coming from that place, I want to communicate to my parents that I have taken the time to consider their child and not just send an emailed report, but a real note about their real child. Emails can be very impersonal, and my kids (and their parents) are people.
On the front, they read TODAY IN LATIN CLASS. Under that, it says notes from the classroom. It lists the school and my email address (which doesn't show in the picture).
On the back, there is again the school's name as well as its address, and it's signed off with cura ut valeas, leaving space for me to sign my name. My goal is to send at least one postcard per class each week. I'm starting there to see how I do and will adjust from there.
I keep a parent contact log in a Google Drive spreadsheet with spaces for the date, student's name, time of day contacted, method of contact (phone, email, postcard) and reason for contact. I have a separate tab in that spreadsheet for each of my classes. I can asked Drive to sort it by student or by date, so that when I'm looking for a student to prove contact, I can do that easily. I've also got a yes/no blank for parent response to indicate whether or not the parent picked up the phone or answered my email.
Parents don't expect to hear good things about their kids - teachers often write home to tell them when their child misbehaved. This is a powerful way to connect with not just our kids, but their home lives, and it only takes an extra couple of seconds to do.
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