Contacting Parents and Administrators

As you head into your new career as a welding instructor at some point you are going to have a students who is a renegade, hooligan, ruffian, lollygagger or maybe just is falling behind. Any of the aforementioned behaviors or situations might be cause for reporting this individual's behavior to people up the chain of command from you including the students parents. 

One of the main things to remember is to keep it professional. If the student is a ruffian and making your life miserable make sure and include all pertinent information in regards to grades, classroom behavior, work ethic, shop safety and attendance. You don't want to write something down in the heat of the moment telling the parents and the students AP/Counselor that the student is the spawn of demons and will probably be the sole reason for Ragnarök happening. Keep it professional when dealing with the administrators and parents of students that are not doing their work or are hooligans. Odds are if you are having to communicate with an assistant principal or counselor about a specific student this will not have been the first time such a conversation has taken place. Ditto for the parents.

The information that I include in any correspondence with administrators and parents is listed below.

How their student is doing – if they are failing let the parents know
What the student is missing
What is the deadline to complete missing assignments
How parents can contact you
Also make sure that you cc your boss and the students AP/Counselor

I have found that having a prewritten form letter saves a lot of time and if written correctly it will lay everything out and also leave you room for minor adjustments. My method is to have the template letter written and kept as a template with about 85% of the information that is needed contained in the template. When I need to break out the letter and contact parents and administrators, I pull the email letter out of the template file, fill out what needs to be changed and I send it up the food chain to the parents, my boss and the students AP/Counselor. 

One of the keys is to always CC your boss. Always keep that individual in the loop as far as communications with parents and administrators. This way if an unexpected situation arises or tempers flare, your boss will not have to wade in after the fact and try to get the situation unkinked.

The email shown below is one of my field tested emails for contacting a parent, administrator, counselor in regard to students missing assignments. This email lays out everything listed above and it very clearly shows what the student is missing. 

Ms. O'Leary/Mr. Everdeen,
 
I have one of your students Frankie Addams  in my 5-6 th period “Welding I” class. I am just reaching out to you to let you know that Mr. Addams has a number of Schoology assignments that are due, overdue or soon to be due. Could you touch base with him and let him know that these Schoology assignments are not optional and are weighted as minor grades. 35% of his grade.

•       Grade for the 3rd grading period is 50.82% - as of today with 4 missing assignments 
•       Major grade – A test tomorrow
•       4 outstanding assignments for the Third grading period
•       40, 69 and 68% on three of the six assignments he turned in.
•       There is No penalty for turning in late assignments
•       I also go over the days assignment during my daily Zoom Meetings – Free answers to the questions if you show up -
•       All assignments are open note, open book, etc. and can be taken over multiple times. Will remain open until 25MAY21

Below is a list of missing assignments for Welding I – 

78 GMAW & Tape Measure
81 GMAW Transfer Modes and Other Stuff
83 GMAW Process 
84 - GMAW & Random Items 

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me in this regard. Thanks and have a great day.


Garry A Pace PE-CWI
Welding Instructor

Not that any of this information is rocket surgery (yes I said that intentionally.) but it is a non welding related administrative skill that I had to learn on the job. With teaching there are a lot of these little tricks of the trade that are way outside the boundaries of passing on knowledge of welding and cutting.

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