Dive Brief:

• First-grade teacher Jessica Meacham set out to improve communication with parents, and after finding out most of them are glued to their smartphones, she went on the hunt for the perfect app, she writes for eSchool News.
• For starters, Meacham made a list of non-negotiables, including that the app be free, allow targeted photos or messages, have an event feature, allow parent-teacher conference scheduling, and work on phones as well as computers, which narrowed her options down to seven: Remind, Class Messenger, Livingtree, SimplyCircle, Seesaw, Class Dojo and Bloomz.
• Meacham created a Google spreadsheet that lists the features of each app for easy comparison by fellow teachers and ultimately decided on Bloomz, which has become a regular part of home-school communication in her classroom.

Dive Insight:

Parent engagement is a direct contributor to student success. When parents feel like they can be partners in the classroom — and understand that is the role teachers want them to play — their children can have a better shot of staying on track and even excelling. Parents who are recent immigrants often do not know this, which means schools and districts have to pay attention to these populations and offer a level of training into the workings of the U.S. education system.

Starting the school year with a survey of parent communication preferences is a good way to get everybody in a classroom on the same page. If teachers and parents do not sync up in their preferred communication method, at least all parties will know that from the beginning and be able to take it into account throughout the school year.