Observations and Interviews
Lehla, Teacher
Lehla is a teacher for middle school students with special needs at a Charter School in a low-income community in Philadelphia. She contacts parents regarding absences, homework, behavioral problems, events, and grades. However, she expressed difficulty with keeping in touch with parents on a regular basis because of phone numbers that change frequently or are disconnected. Additionally, many families do not have internet access beyond their cell phones, which makes them unable to access online materials and resources that may be important. Lehla has resorted to using text messaging as the easiest form of communication with parents, but she wishes more parents were on their emails as this would streamline general communication and enable her to touch base more regularly.
Lessons Learned:
- It's hard reaching parents that have different levels of accesibility to potentially useful methods of communication
- Would prefer email contact over text messaging with parents
- Wants to see more parent accountability and follow-ups
- Ideally, she would contact parents weekly if there were an efficient way to do so