January 24, 2024 • 14 mins
Unlock the secrets to seamless communication with parents in the education sphere, as I share empowering strategies that turn potential conflicts into partnerships. In this riveting discussion, we dissect the art of crafting precise, measurable goals, shining a light on how IEPs can serve as a common language to bridge the gap between educators and parents. You'll be equipped with the knowledge to use data effectively, transforming graphs and evidence into a compelling narrative that supports your student's progress and fosters a collaborative spirit with even the most challenging parents.
Step into a world where teachers and parents align for the triumph of every child's educational journey. We explore the pivotal use of data as a beacon of advocacy, empowering both educators and parents to stride confidently on a united front. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone invested in the academic success of our young learners. With these tools at your disposal, every conversation can evolve into a constructive problem-solving venture, ensuring that our children emerge as the ultimate victors.
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Links Mentioned in the Show:
https://teachingstrugglinglearners.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I know many, many teachers and at the beginning of
my teaching career I wasexactly the same way.
Parent communication can besuper stressful, it just is.
There's a lot behind it, but itis.
But the reality is,communicating with parents can
be really easy if you have goodgoals and of course, I'm talking
(00:26):
to my special educationteachers mostly here, the
general ed teachers.
If you're talking aboutdifferent goals, absolutely it's
the same thing, but obviouslythe last couple weeks I'm
talking more about specialeducation right now.
But as a special educationteacher, if you have good goals
(00:47):
that are specific and they'remeasurable meaning that you can
actually get good data out ofthem, like we talked about last
week, all the people on yourteam can be on the same page and
that makes communicating,especially with parents, way
easier.
Yes, I know we have difficultparents.
(01:08):
There's certain there's inevery group, in every place, in
every state, everywhere in thenation and, I would dare I say,
worldwide.
You're going to have someparents that you just cannot
make happy.
I get that.
That makes sense.
But you can still have commonground in working, even with the
most difficult parents whenyou're working toward the same
(01:32):
goals.
And the reality is evenhonestly, even when I've, in the
past, worked with some prettydifficult parents, which I have.
When you have good goals thatyou can talk about, it really
helps you to build arelationship and a common
vocabulary with parents.
That it really is a lot, of, alot of the most difficult
(01:56):
parents that I've dealt with yes, they were unhappy, they were
unhappy with the system.
They weren't unhappy with mespecifically and they'd been
burned multiple times by poorgoals which led to poor data
gathering, which led to poorcommunication and frustration
from both sides.
And by creating these reallygood, strong goals, we could all
(02:21):
work toward the same goal andhave a common vocabulary between
us.
So there wasn't as muchmiscommunication, there wasn't
as much angst, there wasn't asmuch frustration, at least on my
part.
So today we're going to talkabout how you can build some
better communication throughthose good goals.
(02:50):
Hi, I'm Jessica Curtis ofTeaching Struggling Learners.
I'm a boy mom and a veteranteacher.
You're listening to theReaching Struggling Learners
podcast, where we talk all abouthelping students succeed
academically, socially andbehaviorally.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
(03:12):
So I said it in the intro thereas teachers and this is Gen Ed
and Special Ed at this point wedo we put off communicating with
parents Because, let's behonest, most of the time when we
are calling parents tocommunicate with them, or
(03:34):
putting in notes or emailing orwhatever it is, we're not
bringing happy news.
Most of the time we are bringinginformation to parents that we
know is not the most positive.
Now I've been to a lot oftrainings and I'm sure you have
too that have said you know youneed to say you need to start
off, you know the school yearand all that with a lot of you
(03:54):
know positives.
You know Johnny did a great jobsitting on the carpet today or
whatever it is, but it's Januarynow and that ship has sailed at
this point in the year.
We can try that for next year,but it's January now and that
ship has sailed at this point inthe year.
We can try that for next year,but it's January right now.
We are in whatevercommunication loop that we are
in with the parents.
We know that right now All wecan do is take what we've got
(04:16):
right now with communication,with relationship, with
vocabulary, whatever it is withthe parents and move forward.
And so one of the things if youare looking to improve your
communication with your parentsis creating good, solid goals.
Of course, I'm talking IEPgoals, but this can you know if
you're working with progress,monitoring students through MTSS
(04:39):
.
It's the same thing.
The reality is, good goals makecommunicating easier.
You create common ground.
You can then say if a parent isupset or frustrating, you can
bring it back to the goal thatyou set and say, hey, but here's
how this is improving.
Or here's how we're impacting,how what's going on right now is
(05:02):
impacting this goal, how theinterventions are impacting.
You're creating common groundand a relationship and that
makes it so much easier toreport progress If you have this
goal that you know the parentsare behind, because you know
what parents are against theirchildren learning to read or to
(05:23):
do math or write or whatever itis you know behave in school.
Whatever your IEP goal is, itis so much easier to report
progress when you have a clear,specific goal that you're
working toward, right, and agoal that makes sense Data,
numbers, facts.
(05:44):
The fact is, parents, they can'targue with numbers, right, they
can't argue with graphs, theycan't.
The information is there,whether you like it or not.
If your parents, for whateverreason, are arguing, oh no, my
student can read all those sightwords and you have a graph that
shows.
Well, yeah, they can read someof them.
(06:06):
They can read about 20 of the100 that they're supposed to.
You can't really argue withthat.
You really can't.
No, I have tested your child.
You can say in you know thatthis graph shows that over the
last nine weeks that we havetested your student and we've
been working on the sight wordsevery single day and their
(06:27):
weekly tests, you can see thatthey have learned about 20 of
them.
There's really no argumentthere.
Now you can talk about how youknow what are we going to change
things up?
Because clearly 20 out of 100is not adequate.
It changes what theconversation is going to be and
it allows you to take control ofthose conversations and say I
(06:49):
don't like those numbers either.
Here's what I propose we doabout it.
Again, that goes right intousing that data and graph to
make suggestions.
Right, you can talk about,because you know the student
I'll go back to my.
I know the child knows 20 outof 100 sight words that maybe we
need to talk about changinginterventions.
(07:11):
Maybe we need to talk aboutchanging accommodations or the
time that we have them or maybethe amount of time.
There's lots of differentthings that we could talk about
then to help us achieve thatgoal in a more timely manner.
And it also allows us to helpour parents understand that info
(07:32):
and ask relevant questions sothat they don't have to feel so
defensive because they don'tknow.
Because, honestly, as teachers,we talk a lot of jargon.
We talk a lot of jargon.
We do, and it's not our fault,it's just it's what we do.
Doctors do the same thing,lawyers do the same thing.
(07:55):
Goodness knows my husband's inthe army.
I half of what he says isletters and numbers and I
couldn't understand a word ofwhat he says.
But I smile and nod and okay,we as teachers and special
education teachers, we do thesame thing.
We talk a lot of jargon and alot of parents kind of smile and
nod but they don't understand.
(08:17):
They don't really understand.
They're not in the classroom.
Teachers may have been sayingthe phrase sight words to them
for three or four years, butdoes that really click for them
that there are the first 100Dolsh sight words and these 100
words don't change year to year,and that these words are really
, really vital for theirchildren to be able to read this
(08:40):
text?
They don't live and breathethis stuff like we do as
teachers, and so a lot of timesparents get defensive when we
start pulling out you know allthis jargon and they're talking
about well, my kid can't read.
I just want my kid to read.
Well, yeah, I understand that.
These are the steps that wehave to take to get your child
(09:03):
to read.
If no one has defined that forthe parent, they don't know.
You can't expect them to know.
It's not their fault.
But by using good goals andthen being able to increase that
communication, the goals leadto good communication, which
helps our parents understandwhat we're trying to do for
(09:25):
their kids and, down the road,how they can help their kids too
.
And that's really key to allthis Having visuals out when
you're communicating and talkingabout data with your parents.
Having visuals out on the table,like, for example, whenever we
did initial IEP meetings, I gota copy of the bell curve and I
(09:47):
would have that out on the tableso that I could show okay, an
IQ of 100 is average.
See this right here on the bellcurve parent, that's right in
the middle, and your child's IQ,well, it was 65.
So see, it's kind of out here.
It's out here.
It's not real close to theaverage.
(10:08):
It's not where we want it to bewith that average range.
So that's why your child needsextra help.
And having that visual many,many times helped me to be more
clear with the parents andexplain to them in vocabulary
(10:28):
that they could understand andreally process.
With a lot of information beingthrown at them Every IEP
meeting and every parent-teacherconference, we're throwing a
lot of information and a lot ofjargon at them.
By having a visual there, itcan really help them to
understand.
(10:48):
And then if we consistentlybring this data to show, hey, we
have your child.
You know last week, or you knowlast time we met, only knew 20
out of 100 sight words.
This time they know 80 out of100 sight words.
That's real progress, right.
Being able to do that again upsthe communication, it ups the
(11:09):
understanding and it makes it somuch more pleasant.
I also want to say, if you havethe time, the wherewithal,
getting a vocab sheet like acheat sheet for parents is one
of the next to having visualsthere for them is one of the
(11:32):
best things that you can do tohelp parents really understand
the jargon, the lingo that we'reusing, and it helps us.
It helps me at least to be muchmore aware of what we need to
explain because, again, we welive and breathe this stuff.
We live and breathe phonemicawareness and phonics and sight
(11:54):
words and fluency and all thisstuff.
We live and breathe this stuff.
Percentile ranks and yada, yada, yada.
We talk about this all the time.
Parents don't.
They don't live and breathethis stuff the way we do.
And so having a cheat sheetavailable to give them, it helps
them because then obviouslyit's right there, oh, I see what
(12:16):
a percentile rank is.
It makes sense now.
But it also helps us so that weknow what needs to be explained
in more detail.
If you are looking tocommunicate better with parents
and communicating dataespecially, I really do suggest
put some time and effort intothinking about how you can do it
(12:37):
.
Sheets available or visualsavailable and all that.
It is worth its weight in gold,because you're going to end up
having more pleasantcommunication with parents.
But you're going to have moreeffective communication and, at
(13:02):
the end of the day, we wantparents to know that we're all
fighting for their kid.
We want parents to know thatwe're all fighting for their kid
.
We want parents to know thatwe're not on anybody's side
other than the side of thatstudent making progress, and
(13:23):
sometimes, for a lot of reasons,that gets lost in translation.
So I really want to encourageyou today to take some time and
figure out how to bridge thatgap, so that the parents aren't
over on the other side of thetable feeling like they don't
know what's going on and theygotta fight, because maybe we,
maybe they do need to fight,maybe there's a fight to be had,
(13:44):
but it's not with the teachers,it's not with the teachers,
it's not with the teachers, it'snot with the teachers, it's not
with us that are there tryingto help them and trying to help
their kids.
So let's communicate effectivelyand give each other the tools
that we all need to help thosekids be as successful as
(14:04):
possible.
So next week, we're going totalk about using that data that
I've been talking about foryears and years and years and
years and years to advocate forour kids, whether they be our
parent, our students or, youknow, maybe you're a parent and
you're just looking to figureout how to, how to advocate for
(14:24):
your kids.
Let's talk about that next week.
Until next time, may yourcoffee be strong, your students
calm and, as always, yourstudents progressing Bye.
I know many, many teachers and at the beginning of
my teaching career I wasexactly the same way.
Parent communication can besuper stressful, it just is.
There's a lot behind it, but itis.
But the reality is,communicating with parents can
be really easy if you have goodgoals and of course, I'm talking
(00:26):
to my special educationteachers mostly here, the
general ed teachers.
If you're talking aboutdifferent goals, absolutely it's
the same thing, but obviouslythe last couple weeks I'm
talking more about specialeducation right now.
But as a special educationteacher, if you have good goals
(00:47):
that are specific and they'remeasurable meaning that you can
actually get good data out ofthem, like we talked about last
week, all the people on yourteam can be on the same page and
that makes communicating,especially with parents, way
easier.
Yes, I know we have difficultparents.
(01:08):
There's certain there's inevery group, in every place, in
every state, everywhere in thenation and, I would dare I say,
worldwide.
You're going to have someparents that you just cannot
make happy.
I get that.
That makes sense.
But you can still have commonground in working, even with the
most difficult parents whenyou're working toward the same
(01:32):
goals.
And the reality is evenhonestly, even when I've, in the
past, worked with some prettydifficult parents, which I have.
When you have good goals thatyou can talk about, it really
helps you to build arelationship and a common
vocabulary with parents.
That it really is a lot, of, alot of the most difficult
(01:56):
parents that I've dealt with yes, they were unhappy, they were
unhappy with the system.
They weren't unhappy with mespecifically and they'd been
burned multiple times by poorgoals which led to poor data
gathering, which led to poorcommunication and frustration
from both sides.
And by creating these reallygood, strong goals, we could all
(02:21):
work toward the same goal andhave a common vocabulary between
us.
So there wasn't as muchmiscommunication, there wasn't
as much angst, there wasn't asmuch frustration, at least on my
part.
So today we're going to talkabout how you can build some
better communication throughthose good goals.
(02:50):
Hi, I'm Jessica Curtis ofTeaching Struggling Learners.
I'm a boy mom and a veteranteacher.
You're listening to theReaching Struggling Learners
podcast, where we talk all abouthelping students succeed
academically, socially andbehaviorally.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
(03:12):
So I said it in the intro thereas teachers and this is Gen Ed
and Special Ed at this point wedo we put off communicating with
parents Because, let's behonest, most of the time when we
are calling parents tocommunicate with them, or
(03:34):
putting in notes or emailing orwhatever it is, we're not
bringing happy news.
Most of the time we are bringinginformation to parents that we
know is not the most positive.
Now I've been to a lot oftrainings and I'm sure you have
too that have said you know youneed to say you need to start
off, you know the school yearand all that with a lot of you
(03:54):
know positives.
You know Johnny did a great jobsitting on the carpet today or
whatever it is, but it's Januarynow and that ship has sailed at
this point in the year.
We can try that for next year,but it's January now and that
ship has sailed at this point inthe year.
We can try that for next year,but it's January right now.
We are in whatevercommunication loop that we are
in with the parents.
We know that right now All wecan do is take what we've got
(04:16):
right now with communication,with relationship, with
vocabulary, whatever it is withthe parents and move forward.
And so one of the things if youare looking to improve your
communication with your parentsis creating good, solid goals.
Of course, I'm talking IEPgoals, but this can you know if
you're working with progress,monitoring students through MTSS
(04:39):
.
It's the same thing.
The reality is, good goals makecommunicating easier.
You create common ground.
You can then say if a parent isupset or frustrating, you can
bring it back to the goal thatyou set and say, hey, but here's
how this is improving.
Or here's how we're impacting,how what's going on right now is
(05:02):
impacting this goal, how theinterventions are impacting.
You're creating common groundand a relationship and that
makes it so much easier toreport progress If you have this
goal that you know the parentsare behind, because you know
what parents are against theirchildren learning to read or to
(05:23):
do math or write or whatever itis you know behave in school.
Whatever your IEP goal is, itis so much easier to report
progress when you have a clear,specific goal that you're
working toward, right, and agoal that makes sense Data,
numbers, facts.
(05:44):
The fact is, parents, they can'targue with numbers, right, they
can't argue with graphs, theycan't.
The information is there,whether you like it or not.
If your parents, for whateverreason, are arguing, oh no, my
student can read all those sightwords and you have a graph that
shows.
Well, yeah, they can read someof them.
(06:06):
They can read about 20 of the100 that they're supposed to.
You can't really argue withthat.
You really can't.
No, I have tested your child.
You can say in you know thatthis graph shows that over the
last nine weeks that we havetested your student and we've
been working on the sight wordsevery single day and their
(06:27):
weekly tests, you can see thatthey have learned about 20 of
them.
There's really no argumentthere.
Now you can talk about how youknow what are we going to change
things up?
Because clearly 20 out of 100is not adequate.
It changes what theconversation is going to be and
it allows you to take control ofthose conversations and say I
(06:49):
don't like those numbers either.
Here's what I propose we doabout it.
Again, that goes right intousing that data and graph to
make suggestions.
Right, you can talk about,because you know the student
I'll go back to my.
I know the child knows 20 outof 100 sight words that maybe we
need to talk about changinginterventions.
(07:11):
Maybe we need to talk aboutchanging accommodations or the
time that we have them or maybethe amount of time.
There's lots of differentthings that we could talk about
then to help us achieve thatgoal in a more timely manner.
And it also allows us to helpour parents understand that info
(07:32):
and ask relevant questions sothat they don't have to feel so
defensive because they don'tknow.
Because, honestly, as teachers,we talk a lot of jargon.
We talk a lot of jargon.
We do, and it's not our fault,it's just it's what we do.
Doctors do the same thing,lawyers do the same thing.
(07:55):
Goodness knows my husband's inthe army.
I half of what he says isletters and numbers and I
couldn't understand a word ofwhat he says.
But I smile and nod and okay,we as teachers and special
education teachers, we do thesame thing.
We talk a lot of jargon and alot of parents kind of smile and
nod but they don't understand.
(08:17):
They don't really understand.
They're not in the classroom.
Teachers may have been sayingthe phrase sight words to them
for three or four years, butdoes that really click for them
that there are the first 100Dolsh sight words and these 100
words don't change year to year,and that these words are really
, really vital for theirchildren to be able to read this
(08:40):
text?
They don't live and breathethis stuff like we do as
teachers, and so a lot of timesparents get defensive when we
start pulling out you know allthis jargon and they're talking
about well, my kid can't read.
I just want my kid to read.
Well, yeah, I understand that.
These are the steps that wehave to take to get your child
(09:03):
to read.
If no one has defined that forthe parent, they don't know.
You can't expect them to know.
It's not their fault.
But by using good goals andthen being able to increase that
communication, the goals leadto good communication, which
helps our parents understandwhat we're trying to do for
(09:25):
their kids and, down the road,how they can help their kids too
.
And that's really key to allthis Having visuals out when
you're communicating and talkingabout data with your parents.
Having visuals out on the table,like, for example, whenever we
did initial IEP meetings, I gota copy of the bell curve and I
(09:47):
would have that out on the tableso that I could show okay, an
IQ of 100 is average.
See this right here on the bellcurve parent, that's right in
the middle, and your child's IQ,well, it was 65.
So see, it's kind of out here.
It's out here.
It's not real close to theaverage.
(10:08):
It's not where we want it to bewith that average range.
So that's why your child needsextra help.
And having that visual many,many times helped me to be more
clear with the parents andexplain to them in vocabulary
(10:28):
that they could understand andreally process.
With a lot of information beingthrown at them Every IEP
meeting and every parent-teacherconference, we're throwing a
lot of information and a lot ofjargon at them.
By having a visual there, itcan really help them to
understand.
(10:48):
And then if we consistentlybring this data to show, hey, we
have your child.
You know last week, or you knowlast time we met, only knew 20
out of 100 sight words.
This time they know 80 out of100 sight words.
That's real progress, right.
Being able to do that again upsthe communication, it ups the
(11:09):
understanding and it makes it somuch more pleasant.
I also want to say, if you havethe time, the wherewithal,
getting a vocab sheet like acheat sheet for parents is one
of the next to having visualsthere for them is one of the
(11:32):
best things that you can do tohelp parents really understand
the jargon, the lingo that we'reusing, and it helps us.
It helps me at least to be muchmore aware of what we need to
explain because, again, we welive and breathe this stuff.
We live and breathe phonemicawareness and phonics and sight
(11:54):
words and fluency and all thisstuff.
We live and breathe this stuff.
Percentile ranks and yada, yada, yada.
We talk about this all the time.
Parents don't.
They don't live and breathethis stuff the way we do.
And so having a cheat sheetavailable to give them, it helps
them because then obviouslyit's right there, oh, I see what
(12:16):
a percentile rank is.
It makes sense now.
But it also helps us so that weknow what needs to be explained
in more detail.
If you are looking tocommunicate better with parents
and communicating dataespecially, I really do suggest
put some time and effort intothinking about how you can do it
(12:37):
.
Sheets available or visualsavailable and all that.
It is worth its weight in gold,because you're going to end up
having more pleasantcommunication with parents.
But you're going to have moreeffective communication and, at
(13:02):
the end of the day, we wantparents to know that we're all
fighting for their kid.
We want parents to know thatwe're all fighting for their kid
.
We want parents to know thatwe're not on anybody's side
other than the side of thatstudent making progress, and
(13:23):
sometimes, for a lot of reasons,that gets lost in translation.
So I really want to encourageyou today to take some time and
figure out how to bridge thatgap, so that the parents aren't
over on the other side of thetable feeling like they don't
know what's going on and theygotta fight, because maybe we,
maybe they do need to fight,maybe there's a fight to be had,
(13:44):
but it's not with the teachers,it's not with the teachers,
it's not with the teachers, it'snot with the teachers, it's not
with us that are there tryingto help them and trying to help
their kids.
So let's communicate effectivelyand give each other the tools
that we all need to help thosekids be as successful as
(14:04):
possible.
So next week, we're going totalk about using that data that
I've been talking about foryears and years and years and
years and years to advocate forour kids, whether they be our
parent, our students or, youknow, maybe you're a parent and
you're just looking to figureout how to, how to advocate for
(14:24):
your kids.
Let's talk about that next week.
Until next time, may yourcoffee be strong, your students
calm and, as always, yourstudents progressing Bye.
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