Back to School: Anticipating Parent Concerns – Event Recap

District leaders, school principals, teachers, and PTO members joined Possip to learn what our data says are the most pressing concerns parents share at the beginning of the year. For each top trend, Possip shared tangible strategies and ideas to get ahead of those concerns. For every trend, Possip shared unedited and anonymous family responses to illustrate the range of concerns.

The top three beginning of the year trends include the following:

1. Communication
2. Car Lines and Transportation
3. School Safety
   

Other top trends include Teacher Feedback, Curriculum Feedback, Academic Support, Student Discipline / Bullying, Extracurricular Activities, Facilities and Cleanliness, Cafeteria Feedback, and Administrative Feedback.

How Does Possip Know What Parents are Wondering?

Possip collects and analyzes feedback from families in schools, networks, and districts from almost 40 states. Our data represents over 1 million people who have submitted 1.65 million responses since our founding in 2017.

The insights our panel shared came from analyzing nearly 100,000 Pulse Check responses that were submitted in August and September in 2022. With every Pulse Check, administrators receive a customized report created by our team of current and past educators. Click this link to meet our Possip reporters!

Top Trend #1: Communication

Families’ top concern at the beginning of the school year is communication from the school: what is shared, how often information is shared, and how it is shared. Accordingly, Jennifer Kehl, Possip’s VP of Delivery observed, “Communication is tangible and offers both a challenge and an opportunity for school leaders.”

Next, we offered three concrete strategies to help improve Communication at the beginning of the year:

1. Communication Tool Roundup and Analysis
2. Poll Families – Early
3. Set Clear Communication Expectations and Provide Support for All Staff

Watch this clip to hear Possip Reporting Lead and former principal, Amanda Richards, explain some ideas to bolster skills and support staff:

 

Additional Communication Resources

1. Click this link and follow the instructions to create your own Communication Tool Roundup.
2. Here are more tried and true tips and tools that will save you time in the upcoming year! 

Top Trend #2: Car Line and Transportation

Following communication, families express the most questions and concerns about how their child will safely enter and exit the building. Our Possip panel encouraged administrators to consider the perspective of the family members. For example, some families might be spending many hours each day dropping off and picking up their children from school.

To that end, listen to Possip Founder/CEO and parent Shani Dowell explain how district leaders can set the vision of positive car line experiences across different campuses and how parents can help:

Additional Car Line and Transportation Resources

1. Possip webinar recording, “Making Car Line a Great Experience”. 
2. Read about more car line and transportation strategies here.

Top Trend #3: School Safety

Then, the Possip panel explore the third top trend on families’ minds at the beginning of the year: school safety and campus security. As Shani shared, making sure your school is seen as responsive and communicative goes a long way toward building trust between families and your staff. 

Additional School Safety Resource

1. This article gives more detailed ideas for improving communication about school safety. 

Other Top Trends on Families’ Minds

The Possip team shared other top concerns that are shared by families at the beginning of the year, noting that these continue to be voiced throughout the year. Some concerns become more apparent throughout the year. Generally students build relationships with their teachers and schoolmates and their progress is reported through grades and progress reports. So, families’ responses tend to increase in the areas of bullying and discipline and teacher feedback. 

For example, listen as Possip’s VP of Delivery Jennifer Kehl and Reporting Lead and former principal Amanda Richards describe the change in these trends as the year progresses and how to set up your team for success at the beginning of the year.

Engagement Trends as the Year Progresses

The panelists noted that administrators can capitalize on family excitement at the beginning of the year.  Amanda encouraged leaders to think critically about what expectations they want to set and how they will communicate those expectations through multiple avenues. As the semester progresses, Possip typically sees family engagement dip through the first semester. Finally, during the fall and winter holidays engagement increases and then stabilizes through the rest of the year.

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Things to Remember

Finally, the panel concluded with four takeaways: 

1. Start communication early and often: 7x Rule – It’s been proven that it takes a person receiving information seven times before it sinks in!
2. Enlist families and teachers to practice car lines and other procedures: Remember to think through the perspective of a family member and what they might wonder. 
3. Keep feedback loops open: Families often share brilliant insights into what is working and how to improve. Possip is happy to help you gather and analyze that information!
4. Have fun! At the beginning of the year, your families are excited and nervous and grateful for you and your team’s efforts to help their children grow and learn. Lean into that excitement and have fun. 

The Possip team is excited to continue sharing insights. We are here to help you have the best year yet!

The post Back to School: Anticipating Parent Concerns – Event Recap appeared first on Possip | Engagement Platform | School Feedback Survey.

Possip Live Demo

Join our next virtual live demo to explore Possip’s innovative communication platform, designed to help school leaders communicate more effectively with their community!

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Back to School: Anticipating Parent Concerns

Join us to gain insight into anticipating and addressing school related concerns with your parents – ensuring a successful and confident start to the new school year.

The post Back to School: Anticipating Parent Concerns appeared first on Possip | Engagement Platform | School Feedback Survey.

Create Your Own Communication Tool Roundup

We’ve created a worksheet to help you gather and evaluate the effectiveness of all of the ways you communicate with families when they aren’t in the building!

From managing student information through apps and emailing newsletters to printing flyers and texting or calling, schools have a myriad of physical and digital communication tools at their disposal. From a family member’s perspective, the various avenues of communication can seem overwhelming. And from an administrator’s viewpoint, managing what app is used when and coordinating how often staff and teachers reach out to families can be just as daunting.

Start your Communication Tool Roundup today!

Gather

Use this worksheet to record the details about all of the tools you and your teachers currently use to communicate with families. 

Click the image or this link to create your own Communication Tool Roundup. Once you open the document, make your own editable copy by selecting File > Make a Copy.

Note: Starting on page 2 of the worksheet, we’ve filled out a sample table with examples of different tools your school might use. This list is not exhaustive and includes fictitious names of products!

Ask

Next, use the information you gather to analyze your family communication strategy. Ask yourself questions such as the following: 

• What do new families need to know?
• What can you streamline for returning families? 
• What is the same as last year, and what is different or new?
• How often will family members hear from the school? 
• How often is your communication general, such as information about upcoming events? 
• How often is your communication specific and positive for the individual child?
• What communications are families getting from the district or network and how often?

Think through your tools from a family member’s point of view. If they think they get too many messages from school, is there a way to pare down what they receive to get only the essential information? If they want more information, are there ways for you to leverage the tools to give them more insight into their student’s daily experiences?

Act

Finally, if you complete this exercise at the beginning of the year, how can you communicate to families about what and when to expect to hear from you? 

If you complete this exercise as the school year is already in progress, is there anything you think you should change for next year? Is there anything that you would like to change now to make communication easier for teachers and staff and more engaging for families?

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We’re here to help! For more strategies for effective communication with families, check out this Possip Spotlight:Gamble Montessori’s Strategies For Good Communication With Parents.

 

Download the Communication Tool Worksheet here!

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A Guide for Teachers: Giving Effective and Compassionate Feedback to Administrators

Sarah Besand, a Teacher and Possip Reporter shares her thoughts on giving effective and compassionate feedback.

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Before we get started, ask yourself these questions:

• Are you hesitant to provide feedback to your administrator?
• Do you have ideas for how your school can promote student success that you aren’t sharing?
• Are you resentful of keeping all of your feelings to yourself?
• Do you have positive feedback that you may want to share but don’t know how?

The good news is You. Are. Not. Alone.
Use this resource to help you say what you need to speak with compassion– ultimately setting the stage for longevity and honesty in your relationship with your principal or school leaders.

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When to Give Feedback

Teachers across the United States often feel stuck in terms of providing feedback to their administrator–the person who is in control of their evaluations and employment!  Sometimes you have positive feedback, sometimes you have ideas, sometimes you have constructive feedback.

Dear Teacher, if you feel stuck, be reassured.  Your concern about how to provide compassionate feedback to your boss means you deeply care about the people you work with, your job, and the children you serve. You recognize there are ways to improve your working environment and you also value your job security. You value your relationship with your administrator and you know it is best when that connection is strong.

There are many resources for families that provide tangible resources and tools to provide feedback to administrators such as Possip’s article “Sharing Feedback: A Quick How-To Guide”. The key takeaways from this resource can inform similar methods for teachers. The applicable ideas from this blog include:

• Focusing on maintaining the relationship
• Starting with a positive
• Being proactive
• Framing your problem in a helpful way

These are important general ideas to keep in mind as you navigate these conversations.

We have a few ideas on how to provide administrator feedback – WHAT principles can help guide you and HOW you can actually implement these tools.

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What to Say When Giving Feedback

1. Being clear in your feedback is ultimately being kind

As Brene Brown shares in her resources for workplace leaders, “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” This is an important perspective to remember. It holds us accountable to be honest–especially when it’s hard. Honesty and clarity as a practice strengthen relationships in all areas of our lives.

2. Sharing positive feedback is important

Though administrators are in a position of power, they are also humans with feelings and needs.

They are often navigating complex systems with competing commitments, interests, and priorities.

Just as teachers and staff need positive feedback, administrators do too.  Research shows that the ideal praise-to-feedback ratio is 6:1.  The Ideal Praise-to-Criticism Ratio (hbr.org)

3. Expressing feedback leaves less room for resentment

When we are clear, compassionate, and honest in our feedback, we don’t harbor resentment. What we sometimes don’t realize is that resentment hurts us. Remembering this truth helps us say the hard things we need to say.

When we have shared positive feedback routinely, there is a greater likelihood that trust and relationships exist to provide more constructive feedback.

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How to Give Feedback

1. Share facts and data first

Start with how you feel–because how you feel is a fact you can count on and how you feel cannot be disputed. Here’s a sentence starter: “I am feeling ____ because I am _____.” For example, “I am feeling overwhelmed because I am not accomplishing all of my tasks during my planning time.”  Or, “I am feeling so grateful that you are giving us extra time to prepare our classrooms this year.”

Data can be an important fact.  For example, “this year each class has 32 students; last year we had 27 students”.

2. Use compassion

Not only does it help to remember the humanity of all people–even those who may be your “boss”–coming from a place of compassion will make you more likely to get what you want.

Think about how your administrator may feel and appeal to their vision! For example, “I know you greatly value teacher preparation for lessons to ensure student success.” Or “I know not all principals have prioritized classroom preparation time so I appreciate that you did. It helps me feel prepared for the school year.” This helps your administrator feel heard or appreciated while also cultivating compassion in the conversation. A bonus–using empathy and compassion helps you achieve what you want and strengthens the longevity of the relationship.

3. Be solutions-oriented

Begin with the “end” or solution in mind. You are leading your administrator by positioning them to hear your feedback and also respond to your needs. Here’s a script: “How would it feel to ensure three out of my five planning days are protected so that I am sufficiently prepared to help students succeed?” An article like this one can help you reflect and talk about how this concern is shared by the collective teaching community at large.

4. Create a mini-script for yourself

Think about how you could position a statement with potential tradeoffs. Similar to the strategy laid out in the parent feedback blog article, the positioning of your request or feedback is important. For example, “When I don’t have enough planning time, I’m not as prepared and have less student mastery.”

We came up with an acronym for a quick script you could use:

The AFFECT Method:

AFFECT example:

Appreciation “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share what’s on my mind.  Facts/Data This year we’ve had our planning time filled with school-wide assemblies at least 3 times in the past month.  Feelings/Impact When my planning time is removed last minute, it leaves me scrambling with my students the next class periods and day.  It also makes me feel anxious and stressed. Empathy I know you’re working hard to build a strong school-wide culture – and imagine you’re also trying to communicate some district-wide mandates. Concrete Solutions Might it be possible to create a schedule at the beginning of the month of school-wide assemblies, and rotate who needs to attend them? Takeaway/Call to Action Is this an idea you are open to?”

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We know it can be intimidating to share honest compassionate feedback with the people who manage us–whether positive or constructive. Approach the conversation with empathy and acknowledge that everyone is working toward the same goal: an excellent educational experience for all of your students. You can do this, and your thoughts and concerns can help everyone–your students, your peer teachers, and even your administrators.

Possip supports teacher and administrator relationships and promotes honest communication that helps the entire campus function better as a whole! Ultimately, this will lead to student success and better staff retention as well. We are incredibly grateful for all our administrators who help build healthy and thriving school communities across the globe.

Click here to build your own compassionate feedback guide!

The post A Guide for Teachers: Giving Effective and Compassionate Feedback to Administrators appeared first on Possip | Engagement Platform | School Feedback Survey.

Hoagies, Grinders, Navy Beans, and Not-Sloppy Lunchtimes

Sarah Besand, a Teacher and Possip Reporter shares cafeteria procedures for teachers and other school leaders. 

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Let’s talk cafeteria. Administrators, we know it’s probably not the top thing on your list. We know the schedule, the vendors, and the daily mess can be overwhelming. But we also know that setting high-quality and aligned procedures at the beginning of the year will save you and your staff members many lunchtime headaches in the future. 

We’ve compiled some specific and digestible (no pun intended!) tools that will make you and your staff’s lives much easier this year during student lunchtime. It is entirely possible for both students and staff to get what they need during this time.

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To give you a little comfort, cafeteria concerns are something on the minds of families and staff across the country and the globe. According to last year’s Possip staff feedback trends at the beginning of the school year, student behavior in the cafeteria was #4 on the list, and staff generally expressed a need for more support in terms of cafeteria procedures.

There are several articles and blogs containing “hacks” to implement for schools that need to course-correct their energetic cafeteria settings during the year. Check one out here. We are truly all navigating this challenge together.

At Possip, we aim to provide you with tools to adopt preemptively as you begin this upcoming school year. These tools will help set the tone for what is expected as the year kicks off and keep the standard consistent when students push expectations throughout the year. As educators and administrators, we know our beloved students may try to see what they can get away with as the year progresses!

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Here are our top tips on cafeteria procedures that are destined to help your school succeed at lunchtime

• Decide on specific procedures…and stick to them (unless you have a system that is clearly an improvement)!

  • As you begin the new school year, we recommend meeting with all stakeholders in charge of cafeteria control. Brainstorm together. 
    • How would your ideal cafeteria scenario feel? For students? For staff members? 
    • What would the volume level sound like? Where is the limit? 
    • If someone walked by the cafeteria and peeked inside, what would it look like? 
    • Do these expectations change for students depending on their age? Talk through and decide on the details. 
  • Then, communicate this vision to the students as a united team. And then communicate it again. And again if/when they test a boundary. Revisit and practice the expectations you’ve outlined until the desired procedure is met. This is critical to success in the cafeteria for everyone involved.

• Consider open seating

  • We know this idea may send you reeling. When you think of open seating, you might visualize chaos and a general lack of control which, with food involved, could lead to some pretty sticky situations. However, we suggest this idea to actually minimize volume and conflict. By implementing this strategy, students can chat with their peers without increased volume across tables. Consider open seating within classrooms or grade levels. Giving students choices can be used as a positive incentive. Use it to your advantage!

• Utilize group and individual incentives

  • We all know the importance of incentives to reinforce positive student behavior. However, in a loud and chaotic lunchroom, it can be difficult for anyone to remember! This Possip article,  “Incentives in the Classroom”, reminds us of different ways to use incentives at school, and we recommend trying these same strategies in the cafeteria. The ideas inside this resource include individual as well as group incentives, and both of these can easily be implemented during student lunchtime. Try out using an individual point system or “table points” this school year to encourage student positive behavior throughout the cafeteria. Both of these strategies will likely help students work together to accomplish a common goal.

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We hope these suggestions inspire you and your staff to create cafeteria procedures that align with the vision and tenor of your school and set up your students for success this year! Keep imagining what your ideal lunchtime routine will look like, and make it happen with continual resetting if and when it’s necessary. Working toward this vision together will ensure a smooth daily lunch break and will keep the cafeteria headaches at bay!

Learn more about how school leaders can make a change here!

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Possip Live Demo

Join our live demo to learn how Possip can help your school build a more engaging and connected community by gathering and analyzing actionable feedback from your community.

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