How to Communicate Effectively with K-12 Parents
There’s a meme floating around social media that says, “Kids today: Find out school is canceled via text. Me: Had to wake up at 5 a.m. and watch the bottom of the screen like the NFL Draft.”
On one hand, it’s a silly “back in my day” kind of joke. Baby Boomer parents will roll their eyes and remind us how they walked to school barefoot in the snow uphill both ways. Gen X parents will have a different experience from Millennials, and Millennials will have their own stories to tell to Gen Z. Change is only natural, right? It’s part of the human experience.
But on the other hand, memes like this are a poignant reminder that school communications, effective or not, frame parents’ experiences and determine their level of satisfaction with their school, and with the district as a whole.
In my 20+ years of experience, I’ve seen school communications at its finest and at its worst. So, if you’re struggling to establish cooperative relationships with parents in your district, here are my top tips for effective communication to help you avoid hiccups and provide amazing customer service to your K-12 parent population.
Understanding K-12 Parent Populations
When determining a communications strategy for your school district, it’s important that you first understand the demographics of the parents in your district. Do you have first and/or second-generation immigrant parents? Do you have mostly younger parents between the ages of 26 and 41? What is the average income of the families who attend your school? All of these are factors that shape the parents’ expectations of school communications in your district, as well as the methods they prefer for communication.
During my time in the K-12 space, I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside schools with varied parent demographics, leading customer service training for front office and administrative staff.
One of the first things to understand is that demographics change, and when they do, it has an impact on the ways school districts need to communicate. What worked in the 1990s won’t work the same today. Just like you wouldn’t send a carrier pigeon instead of a mass text message. Schools need to find an equilibrium in their communications strategy that accounts for not only the changing demographics but the size of the district. Families are moving from one state to another more than ever before, and with that many school districts have seen major influxes in the student population.
All of these unpredictable factors contribute to the difficulty level and the methods of communicating with parents. And with a growing administrative to-do list, staff often get overwhelmed by the ongoing demand for parent communication. Consequently, parents interpret hurried interactions as a lack of compassion or empathy for the parent… something we want to avoid!
To account for all of these changes, build in time each year for your district to assess the population, get an understanding for who these parents are - and how they prefer to communicate - and leverage technology to make mass communications easier and more effective in an increasingly digital world.
What You Say and How You Say It: Friendly K-12 Communications
I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.” And that rings true in a lot of cases when it comes to school communications. That’s why when I work with school staff on customer service training, I incorporate the “how” of what is said into our training.
Distraught (and sometimes belligerent) parents, aggravated staff members; we’ve seen it all in the school’s front office. And unfortunately, the front office staff have to take the brunt of those negative situations. But the ability to use friendly communication in these situations is what sets some school districts apart and prevents minor incidents from becoming major ones. It also helps to build mutually respectful relationships between school leaders and the communities they serve.
The good news is that your school can start working on effective parent communications and customer service TODAY by implementing a few key principles and expectations with school staff.
The keys to effective communication in the front office are:
Actively listening
Understanding the situation or concern
Focusing on positivity
Treating all customers with kindness and respect
Reframing negative situations
By the same token, it’s so important that your administrative staff and school leaders show appreciation and place value on the front office staff as a vital component of your K-12 communications system. When each person understands the role they play in the overarching goal of providing quality education for each student, they’re far more likely to go above and beyond to rise to the occasion.
Where You Say It: Accessible K-12 Communications
When I was hired as the Chief Communications Officer for Fort Bend ISD, one of the largest school districts in Texas, I found that there was a surprising lack of online presence for community outreach and communications. They had previously dabbled in social media, but it had never been leveraged successfully as a communications tool. Most district news and announcements were communicated through Twitter, but it was evident that the district was missing a large portion of the demographic by ignoring Facebook, Instagram, and even TikTok.
My first order of business was to bring Fort Bend “into the twenty-first century” by getting the district on Facebook. But in order to transition online smoothly, we had to acknowledge that we hadn’t been reaching out and engaging in the same way parents were accustomed to if they had come to us from a different community. That’s why our first post was, “Hey, look at us! FBISD is now on Myspace… I mean Facebook!”
Acknowledging that change and using humor as a vehicle got the new effort off to a great start, and we were able to create a great rapport with parents and provide critical information in a way we had never been able to before. It wasn’t long before the Facebook community was as large as our Twitter community.
The system has made some great strides since then and now Fort Bend ISD has a 12-person communications team, and a robust online presence.
The key for us was learning the best platforms to communicate to our different constituencies, whether that was parents, students, taxpayers, or a combination. That’s where being organized and streamlining your processes is critical, so it doesn’t take FOREVER to get a message out across platforms.
Transparency in K-12 Communications
Transparency in K-12 communications builds trust with stakeholders, and that can mean huge returns for your district.
While working for Fort Bend, I was able to lead a bond campaign for just under $1 billion that passed with 64% of the vote. Our success all came down to transparency.
Because we took the time to develop our social media outreach and our face-to-face relationships with stakeholders and parents, we had set the table for transparent discussions and mutual trust. And because we had open lines of communication, we were able to articulate clearly to each of the campuses what they were going to get should the bond pass.
What made the most difference was informing voters what it was going to look like when the bond passed, so they could visualize and understand the outcomes. Our administrators shared one-sheeters at each campus. We produced videos for social media. We outlined everything down to the cafeteria tables and bleacher renovations. And then once we sold the parents on how it was going to benefit the educational space for the students, it was a no-brainer.
Conclusion
No matter what your parent interactions look like right now in your district, it’s entirely possible to turn things around and redefine your district’s reputation through strategic relationship building. Methods of communication are always changing. That’s why it’s important to keep abreast of new and popular forms of communication and re-examine your parent demographics to discover what works best for your constituents. Now, in a time when school choice is more prevalent than ever before, we must step up our standard of care toward stakeholders. What you say, how you say it, and where you say it will make or break your relationship to the parents in your district.
Interested in having me work with your school team? Send me an email at veronica@veronicavsopher.com to talk about my in-person customer service training and leadership retreats.