High School Classroom Management

New Teacher Advice to Develop Parent Contact for Teenage Students

Feb 24, 2008

New teachers can strengthen the classroom management plan by organizing parent info records and opening lines of communication with parents to gain support & involvement.

Once students enter high school, their parents often decide to decrease involvement. After all, teenagers desire their independence. However, high school teachers need support with classroom management and involving parents is one way to maintain control over your classroom. Remember to keep detailed, organized records so you can have info handy and easily record all parent contact.

Obtain Parent Contact Information

At the beginning of the year, semester or whenever you receive a new student, have students complete a contact info sheet that requires the following:

Stress the Importance of Parent Contact Information

Be sure students thoroughly complete their information sheets at the beginning of the year. Do not accept incomplete sheets. Remind students to return them and hold them accountable by using leverage. If students do not turn them in by due date, you can deduct 10 points per day off of their class participation grade. As part of your classroom management plan, consider giving students 100 points at the beginning of each quarter and deducting points when students come unprepared. If a student refuses to share this information, obtain the information from his counselor or dean and call parents directly to discuss this defiance. Do not postpone dealing with these issues.

Organize and Store Parent Contact Information

As you accumulate information sheets, store them in a three-inch binder that contains separate dividers for each class period. Alphabetize each sheet within each divider by student’s last name. The binder system works well for high school teachers because all sheets are three-hole punched and cannot fall out. At the beginning of each class divider, include a parent call log where you document the day you tried to make parent contact for a student in that class & include a brief summary of the conversation. You may need to reference these during a counselor conference.

Contact Parents for Positive Feedback

In an ideal world, you would have time to introduce yourself to each parent. However, you don’t need to reserve parent contact solely to those whose children are calling you problems. Pick two students each week who have contributed positively to your class and call their parents to congratulate them. In this case, leaving a message on the home phone is fine; be sure to be specific in your praise. This is a small gesture that will reinforce your classroom management plan.

Calling Parents

Be sure to call parents’ cell phone numbers so high schoolers, who generally return home before their employed parents, don’t erase messages. Leave detailed messages and always request their input, suggestions, and feedback. Let them know you would like to hear back from them to ensure they received your message.

When calling parents, start by communicating something positive about their child. Be genuine and specific. If you can’t think of anything, consider how their child has met class expectations, such as arriving to class on time, bringing supplies, not sleeping in class or causing a disturbance. Don’t overwhelm parents. Decide if the phone call is about discipline issues or grades and tackle one issue at a time, especially if you are leaving a message.

Email Parents

This is the absolute best way to communicate with working parents because you can be sure email is delivered to their private inbox. Ask parents to respond. Print any emails that discuss student difficulties and place them in your parent communication binder. If you want to communicate to all parents about an upcoming exam or assignment, you can efficiently send a group email.

The copyright of the article High School Classroom Management in High School is owned by Thadra Petkus. Permission to republish High School Classroom Management in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.