Parent Information Sheet

I created this parent information sheet to help aid me in improving my parent contact. I have shared the form I created with the hopes that it will inspire you to create your own.

Every year, I tell myself that I’m going to do a better job of staying in contact with parents.  And, every year, I seem to fail at accomplishing that goal.  You see, I have this fear of talking on the phone.  No, that’s not quite accurate.  I have no problem talking on the phone.  I have a fear, though, of calling people on the phone.  If I can text you, e-mail you, write you a letter, or send you smoke signals, I will do that before I pick up the phone.  Calling people is just scary.  

What if I accidentally dial the wrong number?  What if I call at an inconvenient time?  What if I call someone at work and they get in trouble with their boss?  When I’m faced with making a call, I will sometimes sit and think about all the things that could go wrong for minutes.  Minutes.  Finally, I type the number into my phone.  And, I sit there and stress some more.  Finally, I force myself to hit the call button because then there’s no turning back.

And, almost always, it all works out fine.  Then, I start to wonder why I was even so stressed in the first place.  Even when I’m calling about something that’s less than positive, parents always seem grateful that I’ve called.  I tell myself I won’t stress out so much the next time, but I still do.

This year, I’ve decided to do something about this.

Behold, the parent info sheet that I’ll be sending home with students with their syllabus.

We have parent contact information available in our student information system, but I want different details than that provides me.

The first part is all pretty normal stuff.  I want to know from parents what the BEST way to contact them is.  If they never check their e-mail address, it doesn’t do me any good to send them an e-mail.  Also, asking for the best time to call them helps calm some of my fears of inconveniencing them.

This next part is what I’m most excited about.  I want to know WHEN parents/guardians want me to contact them.  If I know that someone wants to be contacted, I should hopefully be less scared about actually making that contact.  Plus, I think it will be informative to see which circles a parent checks.

Then, I want to give parents/guardians a space to let me know anything else they feel is pertinent about their student.  Since students will be returning these, I am giving them the option to contact me via school phone or e-mail to discuss.  

The back of the information sheet has some other stuff I need to get out of the way: proof of reading the syllabus and permission slip for my grad school project.

I am SOOOOO ready to have this grad school project and my master’s degree done!  I’m currently scheduled to finish in March!

I guess there is always the concern that students will fill this out instead of their parents.  But, I’m not sure there is anything I can do about that.  When I do call parents, I think it will be very clear if they have read the syllabus and understand my class policies.  If they are unaware of what is going on, we can discuss the possibility that their student forged their signature.  I really, really, really hope I don’t have to deal with this.