Teachers can spend their days confidently addressing a room full of restless or distracted students. But when it comes to talking to parents, these same teachers can become so nervous that they avoid interactions.
“A lot of teachers I've talked to don't like to call parents,” says Crystal Frommert, a high school math teacher at a private school in Houston. “We think it's taking too long or it could become contentious.”
And today teachers can turn to other means of communication, such as emailing notes to parents, publishing weekly newsletters, or relying on parents to check their students' progress through digital classroom portals.
But Frommert maintains that these other means should not replace occasional phone calls or in-person conversations. In fact, digital tools can lead to misunderstandings.
She learned it the hard way. One day, she sent a quick email to a parent who hadn't completed a digital health form for her child. It was intended as a gentle nudge, but parents took it as terse and demanding, and they complained to the school principal about Frommert's tone.
Frommert shares his experiences and lessons communicating with parents in a new book, “When calling parents is not your calling.“
We connected with Frommert for this week's EdSurge podcast. And he notes that communicating with parents can be more complicated than ever these days.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Cloudy, Spotify, Youtube or wherever you listen to podcasts, or use the player on this page. Or read a partial transcript, edited for clarity, below.
EdSurge: You have been teaching for over 20 years. What changes have you seen in communication between teachers and parents?
Crystal Frommert: One of the things I think is a negative change is that online grade books are pretty common everywhere. Not all schools have them, but most schools I've heard of have an online grade book.
Some of these online grade books will even alert parents when a grade is posted. Then you'll be a parent at work doing your day job and you'll get an alert on your phone that your son or daughter got a 72 on a test, which I think is horrible. It's horrible for parents, because it distracts them. It's horrible for the child, because he didn't even have a chance to explain himself or take the newspaper home to have a conversation. Because there is always a story behind that rating.
And what happens is parents have increased anxiety because they get a hit on their phone or they're checking there. Maybe they just want to check the online gradebook and will email the teacher. And they wonder: 'Why does my child miss an assignment?' Why did my daughter get a 62 on this test? Or worse yet, they themselves will text the child during the school day, saying, “Why does your teacher say you have a zero on this assignment?” 'Why did this happened?' And I can't imagine the pressure those kids and parents feel.
I am a parent myself and have disabled all my access to viewing the online gradebook because I prefer to have real conversations with my teen about how he is doing.
And I was much better as a teacher at communicating a child's progress before the online gradebook, because I knew there was no backup. There was nothing to communicate his qualifications. I was the person who communicated his qualifications.
And now it's very easy to become complacent and think, 'Well, they can always check online if they really want to know what's going on.' But that is not a substitute for having communication.
Do you feel that the percentage of work time needed for communication with parents is greater now than when you started teaching?
In my first year of teaching, I taught in rural Texas (this was in the early 2000s when email wasn't as common), so all of my communication was by phone and in person. And it's hard to compare, because now you can sit down and send an email in just a few seconds. So that part seems faster. But it is also more frequent. So it's really hard to compare (whether I'm having face-to-face conversations or making phone calls) with the dozens of short emails I send or receive that ping me in my inbox. So I think it's very different. If there is more communication, it is simply a quite different type of communication.
Nowadays, many teachers also send weekly newsletters to parents, and as a parent, I receive them for both of my children. But as someone who writes newsletters here, I know it can be a lot of work. What do you think about this trend?
Jennifer González, with Cult of pedagogyShe has a post called 'Why doesn't anyone read your class newsletter.' And I love that. A colleague of mine who is also a father said, 'Yeah, I'm going to be honest with you.' I didn't start reading your narrative until you mentioned my son's name.
And what I have done is start with the child's name. I'll say, “It's a pleasure to have Jeff in my class.” We're learning to solve quadratic equations.' And then I caught the parents' attention because they see their child's name right at the top. And I think the same with newsletters. If it's not something they'll have to take action on, they just sit there in the inbox. Parents' inboxes are also full and are filled with information all day. So if there is a newsletter, try to make it more meaningful and include family action items (practical tips for families to do something at home) instead of just here's the curriculum, because I can see getting lost in an inbox.
He notices that when parents are not engaged, people criticize him. But today many parents have jobs that are not flexible or they simply cannot dedicate as much time.
Yes, I think there are always extremes. There are extreme parents who you will never be able to contact. And then there are also the extremes where you just can't keep them away from your classroom door. So I'm not saying that either extreme is good, but there is a wide range between them and as educators, unfortunately I think we are very quick to judge when a parent is unresponsive or doesn't seem to care. And that's not fair because we never really know what's going on in someone's house.
And I can give you an example of a story that happened to a friend of mine. She was the director of a dance team, and after practice, every practice, this girl wasn't picked up for 45 minutes…every time. And it's pretty easy to say, 'Well, the family just doesn't care.' But she got curious…and she asked the teen, 'What's going on?' And she said, 'I'm not supposed to talk about this, but I have a brother who has a major health problem and it's very difficult for my mom to leave him alone, so I have to wait for someone else to come.' she home to take care of him before she can leave to pick me up.
And she said, 'Oh, I appreciate you telling me that.' I will keep it confidential. But she used that information to have a conversation with parents, and it was a conversation about, 'How can I help you?' How can we find a solution for this?' And they did it somehow. That's why I think it's very important that we stay curious.
The demographics of the country are changing these days. To what extent can language and cultural barriers influence parental communication?
I work at an international school. Our students represent more than 60 countries. We have dozens of languages spoken in our families' homes. And in my experience, I've noticed that when someone is writing an email and it's in their second or third language, sometimes it's quite difficult to get the tone appropriate.
And I know this because I've written emails in Spanish. I'm not very good at Spanish and I'm sure I found them very harsh and abrupt. So I probably shouldn't write emails in Spanish if I want my tone to be cheerful and friendly.
So I've learned that when I get an email it's like, Oh, this tone is a little off. I'll pick up the phone and you'll hear something completely different most of the time.
Accessibility is extremely important. So if a parent feels like they can't talk to the teacher because of the language barrier, I think it's the school's responsibility to make sure translators are available. Have someone available for that in-person meeting or someone on a conference call who can be there to help with that language barrier. And that shouldn't depend on the family; that should be up to the school to make sure it is provided.
We're hearing more examples, especially with the culture wars in education these days, of parents who are really angry and even sometimes abusive toward teachers. Are you seeing more of that?
I did a little bit, and it had a lot to do with some parents being afraid of critical race theory. And I think that has calmed down a little bit. It seemed to have peaked around the pandemic. It was a really difficult time and I hope it doesn't happen again.
I put a chapter in the book about that, about having a conversation with family, that we come from a place of partnership, so no matter where you and I are on the political spectrum, we have a common goal, and that is the success of your son. I want your child to learn. You want your child to learn. I want your son to be safe. You want your child to be safe. Those are things we can absolutely 100 percent agree on. Then we can establish that as a basis for moving forward.
And we can discuss the things that are less important than that: learning and safety. After that, we can go into detail about the type of book I'm assigning in my class that comes from a place of inquiry, explaining why it's important for students to read books by diverse authors and diverse voices. And not in an offensive or defensive way, but about research and how this will help your child learn there. They may not always come to an agreement, and that's okay. And there won't always be sunshine and rainbows. But not getting defensive is extremely important. And staying professional will help the conversation become a partnership rather than a conflict.
Are teachers trained enough to handle these types of situations?
More needs to be done in teacher training. When I was a student teacher I attended a few parent conferences, but they were always the nice ones, the easy ones. And if there was one who was going to get a little tough, they didn't invite me in, because maybe they're trying to protect me as a student teacher. I don't know but I think that's it.
And I have taught as an adjunct at a university for seniors who are pursuing their teaching studies. I have a little bit of experience with this and I think those future teachers could really use that experience of being in difficult meetings.
