Using Apps to Contact Parents
The good, the bad, and the ugly
As a middle school teacher, I spend a lot of time on the phone with parents. Sometimes these calls go well… and sometimes they don’t. Since posting my blog series about how to make difficult parent phone calls, I’ve received several questions about using apps such as Remind and Talking Points to contact parents. Parent contact apps are a mixed bag: they can be good, they can be bad, and they can be very very ugly.
Parent Contact Apps: The good
There are several positive aspects of parent communication apps.
They are free!
They are easy to use.
They are immediate.
They are comfortable for younger teachers and parents
They are impersonal; the teacher is protected from any angry or emotional response from the parent. While it’s arguable whether this is a positive in the long run, many teachers appreciate this aspect of apps.
They provide delay time, allowing users to think before responding.
They create a record of communication.
They protect the teacher’s work-life balance and personal contact information.
Parent communication apps are great when you need to disseminate a short, non-urgent announcement to all students in your class. For example:
This Friday is our French test over food and restaurants. Here’s a link to the study guide.
Our class will be cooking next week; please sign up at this link to help with ingredients!
Students received progress reports today; please review your student’s grade this weekend.
Field trip forms are due on October 11. We hope your student can join our museum trip!
Communication apps can also be useful for sending information to a select group of parents.
If you are receiving this message, your student did not turn in their French essay, and this is hurting their grade. The last day to submit this assignment is March 5.
A third way I use parent communication apps is after I try unsuccessfully to make phone contact with a parent, often due to a behavior or academic concern. I might write:
This is a follow-up to the message I left at 919-555-1234. Johnny is missing four assignments and currently has a grade of 54 in French. I see that he is missing work in is other classes as well. Please encourage Johnny to submit these assignments and let me know if I can do anything to help. Merci!
Good afternoon. I was unable to reach you by phone this afternoon and I want to touch base. Today in class Alyssa had her head down and was too tired to participate. Please check to be sure she is feeling well; here is a link to the assignment she did not complete. I want Alyssa to be successful in class – let me know how I can help!
Apps also work in the other direction, and can make it easy for parents to send you a short non-urgent messages. Many parents seem to appreciate their benefits.
The bad:
Apps can be just too much of a good thing!
I have four children, and the amount of text or in-App notifications I get on a daily basis is a little overwhelming. I get notifications each time a new grade is entered in the gradebook, updates from church, from Scouts, from band, and teacher notifications on the school app which range from “remember our test Friday” to “Please send in more antibacterial wipes” to “Today we did xyz in class!”. I consider myself an involved and attentive parent, but I’ll be honest – sometimes I just swipe left.
I’m not alone! In the business world, there is growing awareness that employees lose hours per week toggling between different apps. Each ping interrupts concentration, and the constant switching between platforms takes a mental toll. The results are mental fatigue, reduced productivity, and missed messages. (read articles in Forbes and the Radical Candor podcast)
Of course, this “app overload” extends to parents of our children, as this article from Yahoo lifestyle describes.
In other words, When we inform parents about everything, the practical result may be that we inform them about nothing.
How do we resolve this information overload?
1) Recognize that just because you’ve messaged parents in an app, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve communicated.
2) Think before you hit ‘send’. Is there a way to consolidate multiple messages or send less updates? Parents don’t need, and may not appreciate, the deep details of life in your classroom. When using apps, less is more.
3) If you don’t receive a reply in the app, it’s probably time to pick up the phone.
This leads to...
“When a student is struggling (academically, behaviorally, or socially), my first instinct should be to call the parents, to inform them of the problem, and to problem solve together. ”
The ugly
Apps are not a replacement live voice communication, and using them inappropriately can get ugly.
When I have sensitive or negative information to share about a student, it is fair to reach out to the parent by phone. No one likes making these calls, and it can be tempting to avoid them completely by resorting to the app.
I once had a parent text me on our school app to try adding her daughter to our upcoming field trip weeks after the reservation deadline. Each time I replied, she immediately fired back with more questions and demands. None of my answers seemed to satisfy her.
On another occasion, a mother texted me angrily about her son’s low grade. She demanded to know why I hadn’t provided the students with notes for the recent quiz (I had) and also asked me to provide printed class notes since her son couldn’t read my messy handwriting on the board (my handwriting is fine).
“ I consider myself an involved and attentive parent, but I’ll be honest – sometimes I just swipe left.”
In both these cases, the app was too impersonal and too limited for the sensitivity and negotiation the situation needed. Continuing a conversation on apps in these circumstances can get ugly quick! When a text exchange with a parent becomes unproductive, it’s time to pick up the phone. This human touch allows you to inject tone into the conversation and to empathize, listen, and problem solve more effectively than a 600 character limit allows.
In the first situation above, I was able to explain the rationale for the field trip deadline and firmly but politely decline the parent’s demands to add her child. The parent was not happy, but the situation was unequivocally resolved.
In the second situation, I texted the parent links to our classroom website (with study guide posted) along with a photo of my (perfectly legible) handwriting on the whiteboard. I followed up with a phone call. The mom was sheepish and told me, “Your handwriting is just fine. I don’t know why he said all that. Maybe he was making excuses?” (spoiler alert: he was!) While her initial frustration was misdirected, the mother’s concerns about her son’s under-performance were valid. I listened to her perspective and we were able to troubleshoot together. The conversation ended with clear steps forward. The student turned it around, ended up doing very well, and continued into upper level French! He knew that his mom and his teacher were on the same page, and excuses and misrepresentation wouldn’t work. A phone call allowed mom and I to approach the problem as a team, and this led to vastly better student outcomes.
When a student is struggling (academically, behaviorally, or socially), my first instinct should be to call the parents, to inform them of the problem, and to problem solve together. Does this always work? Of course not. Do parents react with anger or aggression? It does happen sometimes. (read how to handle those calls here!) But, I would say at least 80% of these calls go well or neutrally. It’s our job. Pick up the phone!
So there you have it! Apps have their place, but like any tool they must be used to solve the right problem. Parent communication apps can be good, bad, or ugly. The difference lies in the approach of the teacher using them.
Do you use apps to communicate with parents? Have you seen communication on the app go wrong? Share in the comments!
