Running Head: CREATING POSITIVE COMMUNITY WITH PARENTS

Creating Positive Community With Parents

Jessica A. Williams
Regent University

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Running Head: CREATING POSITIVE COMMUNITY WITH PARENTS
Introduction
A part of the teachers job is to create a positive community with administrators, fellow
teachers, students and parents. Although these are all important relationships, one relationship
that is important for teachers to foster is the teacher to parent relationship. This relationship is
important for the student to have support at school and at home. If teacher and students parents
or guardians both have the childs interest in mind and want to work together, this can help the
student to have the best year possible.
Rationale
One of the keys to building a community for student learning is having effective
communication with the student, the parent, and the community around you. The teachers focus
should be the childs success as well as the parents. A teacher has much to gain from developing
a constructive working relationship with teachers and guardians (Partin, 2009, p. 280).
From what I heard from my current cooperating teacher, the parents at Southeastern
Elementary are very involved in their students learning. She has parents that come in every day
to drill multiplication facts with students and has continual contact on a weekly basis with most
of the students parents. In order to build on that community and to create a positive entrance for
me; I decided that I would write a newsletter for the students to take home to their parents. In my
artifact which was my newsletter I state my purpose for being in the classroom which was for my
student teaching experience. I then told the parents of my experience and the different grade
levels I have observed to let them know I have worked with children before. I told them that I
looked forward to working with their kids and that I felt that teaching is my calling and purpose.
I also gave the parents my e-mail address and invited them to e-mail me. I believe this invited the
parents into my experience and allowed them to realize I am really interested in their kids

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Running Head: CREATING POSITIVE COMMUNITY WITH PARENTS
wellbeing for the short time I am in their classroom (Partin, 2009, p. 283). I believe my artifact
showed my willingness to build community in this school. In my last school I had very little
interaction with parents, but that was he culture of the school. The teacher communicated mostly
through phone and e-mail and I only saw a few parents at the open house and at one parent
teacher conference. I believe parents play an important role in their childs education and I knew
Southeastern Elementary School had more parent involvement, so I wanted to send the letter. I
was right because when I arrived I met a parent of one of my cooperating teachers students
every day of that week. I chose this artifact because this shows I want to communicate with
parents in a positive way and not just in a negative way during my experience at Southeastern
Elementary School
Reflection
This artifact is an example of how I built effective communication for student learning.
This was the first step for me as a student teacher to build a relationship with the parents. I would
be able to build a relationship with the students in the classroom. In order to build one with the
parents this required me to reach out to them. If they heard about me it will be what their kids tell
them. However, at this placement I wanted to reach out to the parents first, before they heard
about me from their kids. I hope that most of them read it. I did receive one e-mail from a mom
of one of the students welcoming me to the class. I was glad to see someone had read my letter.
Since Im not main teacher this is what I can do to help continue to build that learning
community that my teacher had created. For several weeks I will be in charge of student
learning, so I may have to communicate with parents what is happening with their child. As I
mentioned earlier this school has built a community of high parent involvement. My cooperating

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Running Head: CREATING POSITIVE COMMUNITY WITH PARENTS
teacher uploads grades daily and the parents get to see them. Once a week she sends folders
home with notes from the school and with the students work in the folder. She has parents come
in and they are involved in the kids classroom experience. As a student teacher it amazes me
how much the parents are involved and the positive learning community that is already built,
which the teacher probably started at the beginning of the year. Therefore, as the new person
coming into the room, I decided that a newsletter would be appropriate to send to the parents. I
wanted to let them know I want to build community, desired feedback and wanted to talk to
them, and help their child succeed.

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Running Head: CREATING POSITIVE COMMUNITY WITH PARENTS

Reference
Partin, R. L. (2009). The classroom teacher's survival guide: practical strategies, management
techniques, and reproducibles for new and experienced teachers; [grades K - 12] (3. ed.).
San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.