The past few years have undeniably changed the dynamic of the parent-school relationship. From increasing questions about pedagogy, curriculum, and grading to more recent challenges involving books in schools, it’s clear that parents feel excluded.I started noticing more parent challenges at University School of Milwaukee (WI), where I’m head of the middle school, at the onset of the pandemic. For the first time, parents were experiencing school from the student perspective, and their questions ranged from how classes reviewed math homework to how science project grading rubrics were established. Parents generally aren’t trained educators with the context and experience to fully understand educational practices, but clearly, they’re eager to learn more. Their questions are important—and our need to address them is imperative.
Relations between independent schools and the parents they serve have never been so fraught, and independent schools must cultivate a more intentional and comprehensive parent-school partnership. To answer the call, we’ve devoted more time to parent education at University School over the past few years. We have always had a parent education program, but it was sporadic and broader in scope. Now, with the wisdom of the pandemic and the context it created, we’ve developed a more structured program with built-in touchpoints throughout the year.
The Background
Before the pandemic, parents interacted with our middle school primarily through social gatherings, such as back-to-school night, student showcases, and athletic events during which parents played the part of cheerleaders. Meanwhile, the school hosted parent-education events, including a speaker series focused on student wellness, and parent association coffees that occasionally featured school programs in areas such as innovation, counseling, and leadership.When the pandemic hit, however, parents wanted to know more about our academic program, including our curriculum and grading philosophy. One longtime parent, whose multiple children attended University School for several years, admitted that the purpose of grades and feedback and the integral role they could play in child development—something educators tend to take for granted—had always eluded her. She said she wished she’d had a greater understanding about grades through the years so that she could better support her children.
Then came the clincher: Parents, she continued, have coaches for so many different aspects of their lives, from mentors and lifestyle gurus to fitness trainers and yoga instructors. But when it comes to one of the most important aspects of their lives—parenting—they don’t have any coaches.
This conversation led me to start thinking about how schools—particularly through division heads, deans, and counselors—have an opportunity to be experts for parents on academic topics as well as resources for them on topics such as social conflict, digital citizenship, and developmental milestones. This epiphany prompted more questions: How can we better support parents so that they can best help their children outside of school? How can parents and schools be more open about their shared goals at a time of rising distrust among parents regarding schools’ educational mission? And what does it really mean to strengthen the parent-school partnership?
The Approach
With the goal of building greater trust and knowledge and better articulating our shared goals with parents, we refocused some already established parent relations components and built out a few others. Many people at the school have become an integral part of this work.Monthly Book Reviews
My monthly communiqué to parents is built around a book review that focuses on an aspect of middle school life. Through this, I’m able to demonstrate my leadership and expertise, and my understanding of the school experience for students and parents alike. These columns have generated lively conversation at morning drop-off and school events. They also reinforce the sense that our school is a thought leader on adolescent topics ranging from academics to social emotional learning while building the school’s brand identity as an active and engaged educational institution.
When I first started writing these columns in 2019, they had the corollary benefit of underscoring, through books, the educational nature of our mission. Since the pandemic, many of my columns have focused on challenges confronting children today, such as managing social media and grappling with anxiety and depression. I’ve interviewed psychologists Lisa Damour and Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, among others. Learning that difficulties such as friendship conflict and the fear of missing out (FOMO) are often integral to tween and teen development can reduce parental anxiety and lead to more informed phone calls and meetings with parents when issues arise. My hope is that parents realize they’re not alone in confronting the struggles and discomforts as well as the joys and triumphs of parenting.
Other columns have focused on cooking with kids, outdoor education, and summer reading suggestions. I’ve recommended young adult titles around the holidays, and I’ve offered reading suggestions for parents, thereby driving home that learning is a lifelong process. Modeling the importance of reading is one of the ways parents can partner with us in fostering their children’s education.
Parent Workshops
In the spring of 2022, the middle school, which has nearly 300 students, started hosting in-person gatherings for parents with the dual goal of bringing families together as well as exploring education-specific topics that we know are on parents’ minds. To date, we have developed four events, led by middle school faculty, with participation ranging from about 20 parents per event to more than 100 parents.
The presentation topics have included:
- SEL Night: This workshop used Michelle Icard’s Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen: The Essential Conversations You Need to Have with Your Kids Before They Start High School to help small groups explore scripted scenarios. Parents practiced problem-solving in a way that felt safe and useful.
- Math Night: Math department teachers educated parents on our approach to math education. To illustrate the scope and sequence of the program, they displayed a graphic organizer that showed different pathways through the 5–12 grade program. Parents reported that the event helped them realize that there are many paths to success.
- Grades and Feedback: Teachers explained the grading philosophy and how they offer customized feedback, opportunities for retaking assessments, and extra help both within and outside of the school day. Parents came to understand that students have many opportunities to improve their grades through reflection and self-advocacy.
- STEM Night: Parents and students learned about environmental clubs, robotics, the math team, and project opportunities—all outside of the classroom. Students showcased successful projects in various areas. We also recognized students who have won awards or who have participated in these programs.
Videos are a quick and easy way to build broad parent engagement because they require very little time from parents who may be too busy to read an article or attend an evening event. Showing students fully immersed in school activities sells our programming better than any article or workshop ever could. Videos feature a large cross-section of students in action, sharing their enthusiasm for their clubs, interdisciplinary work, and the design of our academic schedule. We’ve produced three videos this year on student book clubs, math-science labs, and our new academic schedule. They are three to four minutes long, and we share them in the middle school’s weekly newsletter.
The Takeaways
Since the rollout of this new parent-relations strategy, I’ve measured success by a decrease in the number of phone calls, emails, and in-person meetings involving parents who had questions about or challenges to our practices. Time and again, parents have told me how much they value this new programming. Sometimes, a parent tells me that while they initially ignored an article I wrote, they returned to it when its topic suddenly became relevant to their child (it’s important to create a digital library of such articles for parents, which we have on our website).These columns, events, and videos are only an initial suite of options. Ultimately, a robust parent-education program would function as a kind of “parent university,” with half- or full-day workshops addressing various topics, a fully engaged book club, and movie nights that allow parents to watch and discuss films featuring teen issues.
In addition to rolling out something like that, I’d also like to explore how to engage faculty in nontraditional ways so that they have more proactive and sustained contact with parents, rather than reactive one-off meetings. I envision grade-level teachers hosting evenings at the start of the school year about what parents should expect from kids, both academically and socially, in their grade. Such meetings would ensure that parent-teacher conferences, which are largely about grades and student progress, wouldn’t be the only touchpoint between faculty and parents.
Parent-education programs should be densely layered—and should be driven by the needs of our students and the interests of our parents. While this kind of proactive programming initially requires a significant investment in time, it will enable more informed, collaborative, and thoughtful decisions involving the kids whose education is our mission, saving schools time in the long run.
Reaffirming our collective commitment to that mission—during a fractious time when we are seeing so much polarization involving the parent-educator relationship—can bring us together in ways that are mission-driven and student-centered. Learning together can help us remember that even when we read a situation differently, we’re all on the same page when it comes to our kids.
We can’t address such disconnects by treating parents as though they’re the problem. Instead, we must allow parents to help us craft informed and collaboratively devised solutions. Parent education isn’t an ancillary, public relations add-on, but indispensable to our future success as independent schools.
Go Deeper
Psychologists Rob Evans and Michael Thompson know independent schools. And independent school parents. The former teachers and school consultants share their insights and tips for how schools and parents can work better together in two NAIS resources: Hopes and Fears: Working with Today’s Independent School Parents, a 121-page handbook to improve relationships; and two related webinars. Access the recordings:- Hopes and Fears: Working with Today’s Independent School Parents Post-Pandemic
- Hopes and Fears: Strengthening Home-School Boundaries and Connections
