Build Productive Parent-Teacher Relationships with These 4 Emails

“Did you call home?”

We don’t know about you, but for us, those are four dreaded words.

Sometimes it’s because we just don’t have time, and phone calls to guardians take time. Sometimes it’s because we’re afraid of where the conversation will go: are we walking into a minefield? Sometimes, if we’re honest, it’s because navigating a language barrier can be exhausting. Sometimes it’s because it feels like the counselor or administrator is trying to pass the buck back to us. And sometimes it’s because we’re millennials, and who talks on the phone anymore???

Parent-teacher relationships can be some of the most strained relationships on a school campus. As teachers, we frequently hear, “Ugh, parents.” But as humans outside of the education world, we hear our friends, tutoring clients (Steph), or ourselves (Kate) complaining about teachers who won’t communicate, who won’t compromise, who won’t answer questions.

We need to be completely honest here, we were not particularly good at communicating with the adults in our students’ lives. But, having been out of the classroom for a little more than a year, it is something we do feel a few regrets about (Kate spoke about it in this episode of the podcast). All this to say, if you are not great at communicating with your students’ caregivers, we see you; we understand you.

If you’ve been on the receiving end of a particularly nasty parent phone call or received an angry email from a guardian, we know exactly what that feels like. It can make it very hard for you to want to reach out to your students’ adults as often as you feel you should. Emails were the medium that felt most comfortable for us to communicate with others about our students (hello, cc), and email templates helped us to reach out more often and approach a variety of situations in a more systematic way.

Because the fact of the matter is that we need to communicate with the adults who care for our students. Not only is maintaining parent-teacher relationships part of our job duties, but we are going to be more effective in helping our students thrive when we include guardians in the process. And it doesn’t have to be torturous: for every negative conversation that’s burned into our brains, we’ve forgotten about several neutral or positive ones. The adults in our students’ lives want to be included, like to be included, and in most cases, aren’t trying to trick, manipulate, or control you (if they are, it’s time to bring in an administrator).

But the struggle is real, time pressures are no joke, and making time to build strong parent-teacher relationships requires real discipline and effort. And then once you make the time, what do you say?

There are four emails that should be part of your regular repertoire in order to build stronger parent-teacher relationships and help your students thrive. We recommend creating templates for these emails to save yourself time (or, better yet, join our free resource library, download the templates we’ve put together, and save even more time).

4 Email Types to Help Foster Parent-Teacher Relationships

#1: The Positive or Complimentary Email

These are enjoyable emails to send, yet we often get so bogged down by the negative, we seldom make time to send them.

Sending positive emails goes a long way toward building trust between you and your students, relationships between you and guardians, and relationships between students and their caregivers. Adults have come to associate an “email from the teacher” with bad news, so let’s break the trend and let guardians know their student is doing well.

We aim to send 4–5 of these emails per week (total, not per class and certainly not per student!). Keeping a checklist allows you to cycle through all of your students at some point in the school year. 

Consider batch sending these on Fridays: not only does it get you to sit down and do it (and probably get through it faster), but it lets you end the week on a good note (and students will appreciate the goodwill coming their way as they head into a weekend at home and ask for permission to go out).

When we send these emails, we like to provide a specific example of something the student did (aced a test, raised their grade, did something kind, provided an insightful contribution to class discussion). It doesn’t have to be long: it can just be a sentence or a few words.

We encourage the recipient to let the student know we have emailed and use the opportunity to spark good conversations. We thank the recipient for their partnership, opening the door for them to request support as needed.

These short emails will help soften the parent-teacher relationship between you and guardians and let them know you’re available and on their side.

Pro-tip for all guardian communication: don’t refer to adults by name until you have established a relationship. Email addresses don’t always match preferred names, and the official information in school portals isn’t always helpful. We also try, increasingly, to use terms like “guardians,” “responsible adults,” or “caregivers” to be inclusive to non-traditional families where students may not be raised by their biological parents.

#2: The Initial Concern Email

It is important to attempt to loop guardians into a potential issue regarding their student as soon as possible. While the occasional adult will not appreciate your outreach, by and large guardians respond positively and can often nip potential issues in the bud. When you reach out before a minor issue becomes a major one, you help to establish your partnership early on and demonstrate you are proactive and eager to see the problem resolved.

This is relevant for both academic and behavior concerns, though you may want separate templates for each (don’t worry, we’ve got you covered). In addition to helping students perform their best and strengthening your partnership with students’ caregivers, these initial concern emails help you document the steps you’ve taken to help a student, which can come in handy down the road if the situation worsens and requires counselor or administrator involvement.

When writing these emails, we recommend starting with specific details about your concern. For an academic concern, this could be something like multiple missing assignments, a failed test or quiz, a failed or missing major assignment, or a dropping grade. For behavior concerns, you’ll want to be as specific as possible in describing what’s going on: if it stays vague, the student will likely fill in their own version.

We also like to share that we have already spoken to the student, and we share what the student said. Not only does this establish that we have already taken steps, but it gives a fuller picture of the situation than the student will likely provide.

We emphasize the importance of personal responsibility at the high school level but also encourage responsible adults to give a little nudge to get things back on track.

Finally, we thank the recipient for their partnership and open the door for them to request support or share family circumstances that may be contributing to the behavior.

These emails are especially important to send at the beginning of the year when students are testing boundaries. For those students who are going to be a problem all year, it begins the process of documentation early. But for those students who are just trying to figure out which teachers will truly hold them accountable, it sets a standard early on, and for these students, we see a quick turnaround after the initial email.

#3: The Repeated Concern Email

If, after attempting to loop guardians into an issue regarding their student, you have not received a response and/or meaningful interaction, we suggest sending another email. Alternatively, this is a good email to send if there was a response to the previous email but nothing has changed in the student’s performance or behavior.

At this point, we also cc the student’s counselor as well as the relevant administrator. Sometimes counselors and administrators have more time and/or resources to track down the source of the problem. Depending on the severity of the concern, we may also cc other teachers in classes where it seems like the student has a similar issue. Another teacher may have been able to contact the guardian and/or have additional insights.

Again, this works for both academic and behavior concerns, though we recommend having slightly different templates for each.

We like to start this email by referring to the previous email. This clues in counselors and administrators, but it also serves as a reminder to the student’s responsible adult that this is not the first time you’ve reached out.

We provide specific information to update guardians on the situation. For academic concerns, this means providing data like the number of missed assignments or the student’s current overall grade. We also include a warning that this could affect the student’s ability to pass the class (especially important when you teach seniors and graduation is at stake). For behavior, we include the impact the student’s behavior is having on other students, the student’s own learning, and/or our ability to teach the class effectively. 

We share the results of our follow up with the student and what the student has said in these further conversations. We inform students’ caregivers that we are looping in the counselor and/or administrator in hopes that we can all work together to solve the problem.

For academic concerns, we also include a reminder of how many days remain in the grading period or semester and list several assignments that students should prioritize in order to improve their grade.

We end with an open door for further conversation but with a stronger push to reply than in our first email.

This email is especially important for serious behavior issues and students who are at risk of failing: administrators often expect to see a record of previous communications.

#4: The Academic Dishonesty Email

If your school is like ours, we are required to communicate with guardians regarding academic dishonesty, even though the consequences for academic dishonesty are administered through our counseling department and administrative team. Because they will handle the consequences, we cc the student’s counselor as well as the relevant administrator when we contact the guardians. 

These are often some of the most contentious communications we have with guardians. We suggest making it factual, not personal, and avoid referencing consequences unless you will be administering them yourself. If possible, we also recommend providing highlighted evidence of the plagiarism so the recipients can see it for themselves: this tends to avoid some of the teacher said/student said arguments.

This email applies to cheating on an assignment, cheating on a test or quiz, and plagiarizing from another student or the Internet, though you may need slightly different templates for each.

We begin by sharing what happened, when it happened, and in what class it happened. We explain that we have provided highlighted evidence to an administrator who will follow up about disciplinary action, and when possible, we note that we have included a copy of that evidence in the email. (This is also a good reason to cc the student’s counselor or your administrator because it ensures everyone involved has received the same version of events.)

We remind recipients of the school’s policy and the impact the student’s choice will have on their grade in the class. After this, we often (not always) like to allow the student to make up the assignment for partial credit, though we often set specific requirements for when they can make it up, what the alternate assignment will be, and what the maximum score possible will be.

When we do this, we like to note that it is an exception to the school policy in order to make the experience a learning opportunity. This can deflate some of the contention that often follows these emails, though if your school’s policy is that students will get a zero, you are by no means obligated to make an exception!

Of course, we encourage students’ responsible adults to contact us if they have questions about the situation.

Conclusion

While certainly not the only emails you’ll ever have to send, these four emails should make up the bulk of your communication with guardians and will go a long way toward building strong and positive parent-teacher relationships that ultimately help students to thrive. And if you can create templates for them, you save valuable time for the tough emails that require a little more attention.

Ready to start saving time while improving parent-teacher relationships? Download free templates for each of the emails described above (with separate versions for academic/behavior concerns and the three different types of plagiarism).