How to Get Parents More Involved With Your School
When you have engaged parents the impact on a school can be significant:
But starting this chain-reaction is never easy...
Competing Distractions Let's face it - parents these days are busy.
Busy sometimes fails to articulate the strains of keeping up with challenging economic times, demanding employers, extra-curricular activities, not to mention social activities.
It can be hard for a school to engage and compete.
To engage parents methods need to align with the way parents work.
Today this is rapidly meaning email and web communications.
You need to create two different types of communicating with parents - push, and pull.
Pushing Parents to Engage with Schools Pushing means proactive communicating with parents.
This can be done via a number of methods.
Email: - you're probably thinking "well of course".
But email needs to be finely balanced.
You may have a directory of parent's email addresses but if you overuse it with systems such as Constant Contact you can quickly find parents opting out and this communication method can close down.
So striking a balance is critical.
Perhaps one email a week.
It's vital that emails quickly get to the point - so be very clear with subject lines, catch people's attention.
If your email contains many topics break them up with clear and concise headlines.
Sometimes images can make an otherwise long and text-heavy email much more compelling.
Newsletters & Flyers: - at our children's school there is a "Wednesday packet" that the children bring home.
While not always the most environmentally friendly method, newsletters can reach parents who are not on email (yes, these people do exist!), have overloaded inboxes, or who where your emails are going into their junk mail folder.
Creating Demand Pull Diverse and frequent events: You want to create forums where parents interact.
You probably have some already but it's worth trying out new things to see if you can stimulate more engagement.
It's fine to try and fail but if you can find one new event then that single event, repeated monthly, might result in thousands of extra fund raising dollars for the school.
Here are some ideas you might try:
These are effectively evangelists for the school and ensure you not only retain students but attract future students to the school.
Service Hour Programs One tool that can be highly effective, especially if you need parents to fill in when you have a staffing shortage (common place in today's budget cutting environment) is a service hour program.
This can be made more attractive to parents if offered in conjunction with a discount on school fees (for private schools).
Even public schools however might suggest a target.
These programs need to consider: - some parents may not be able to offer hours, they may be doing two jobs - single parents should be given a lower hours target for obvious reasons - some parents can be turned off by overly demanding programs Service hour programs can also be a way of balancing a school fee increase.
For example, instead of increasing fees by $600 a school could raise fees by $800 and offer a program with a $400 savings for parents who do 50 service hours each year.
Success - a Challenging Recipe There's no single recipe for success, but like an entrepreneur a school should be willing to try out new approaches.
The downsides of a single event or approach not working are eclipsed by the very real returns when you really start to engage parents and get them involved in school activities.
- Academic achievement rises
- Children's behavior improves
- School events are well attended
- Fund raisers become much more successful
- The school community becomes tighter; parents interact with each other and the school more often
But starting this chain-reaction is never easy...
Competing Distractions Let's face it - parents these days are busy.
Busy sometimes fails to articulate the strains of keeping up with challenging economic times, demanding employers, extra-curricular activities, not to mention social activities.
It can be hard for a school to engage and compete.
To engage parents methods need to align with the way parents work.
Today this is rapidly meaning email and web communications.
You need to create two different types of communicating with parents - push, and pull.
Pushing Parents to Engage with Schools Pushing means proactive communicating with parents.
This can be done via a number of methods.
Email: - you're probably thinking "well of course".
But email needs to be finely balanced.
You may have a directory of parent's email addresses but if you overuse it with systems such as Constant Contact you can quickly find parents opting out and this communication method can close down.
So striking a balance is critical.
Perhaps one email a week.
It's vital that emails quickly get to the point - so be very clear with subject lines, catch people's attention.
If your email contains many topics break them up with clear and concise headlines.
Sometimes images can make an otherwise long and text-heavy email much more compelling.
Newsletters & Flyers: - at our children's school there is a "Wednesday packet" that the children bring home.
While not always the most environmentally friendly method, newsletters can reach parents who are not on email (yes, these people do exist!), have overloaded inboxes, or who where your emails are going into their junk mail folder.
Creating Demand Pull Diverse and frequent events: You want to create forums where parents interact.
You probably have some already but it's worth trying out new things to see if you can stimulate more engagement.
It's fine to try and fail but if you can find one new event then that single event, repeated monthly, might result in thousands of extra fund raising dollars for the school.
Here are some ideas you might try:
- Pancake breakfast
- Outdoor movie night clearly not for Montanans in the winter.
Rent an outdoor screen, put up a popcorn and drinks stand, have parents bring lawn chairs and this can make for a great experience and fund raiser.
You may want to opt for family favorite movies such as ET, Home Alone..
, - Fun fairs These can take a lot more organization but are worth considering if you have started to build a really active group of parents.
Ensure that you have appropriate liability insurance and agreements with any ride vendors you engage.
These are effectively evangelists for the school and ensure you not only retain students but attract future students to the school.
Service Hour Programs One tool that can be highly effective, especially if you need parents to fill in when you have a staffing shortage (common place in today's budget cutting environment) is a service hour program.
This can be made more attractive to parents if offered in conjunction with a discount on school fees (for private schools).
Even public schools however might suggest a target.
These programs need to consider: - some parents may not be able to offer hours, they may be doing two jobs - single parents should be given a lower hours target for obvious reasons - some parents can be turned off by overly demanding programs Service hour programs can also be a way of balancing a school fee increase.
For example, instead of increasing fees by $600 a school could raise fees by $800 and offer a program with a $400 savings for parents who do 50 service hours each year.
Success - a Challenging Recipe There's no single recipe for success, but like an entrepreneur a school should be willing to try out new approaches.
The downsides of a single event or approach not working are eclipsed by the very real returns when you really start to engage parents and get them involved in school activities.
