Educators value the involvement and support of parents, guardians, families and communities in schools.

During my practicum, we sent home three interim reports to make sure that the parents were aware of the students who were failing due to not handing things in. When my coaching teacher phoned some of these guardians, we discovered that students were not taking the interim home and getting it signed. One student I phoned home for was due to poor absence. In my message I asked for any information they could give me to help this student to succeed in my class. Through follow up with the student’s Vice Principal, we discovered that there were some mental health issues that were impacting this student’s attendance. As such, I accepted work from this student past my deadline for the general class.

During my last practicum, I have had to phone home many times. I also participated in the band community by attending band meetings and parent teacher night. With a few students, we have had to engage the parents to help us with behavior management and attendance. My coaching teacher and I, once we began to notice bad patterns, connected with families as quickly as we could. One students was absent for over a week and a half, so I contacted home out of concern to find out how they were doing and when the student might be coming back. The father was incredibly happy to receive my phone call. He had been concerned that no one cared that his daughter was missing classes because the school had not contacted him in any way to check in. I was happy to step in, in this moment, to connect with the family and ask after their wellbeing and learn a bit about both the student and the father’s music backgrounds. We talked for twenty minutes before I had to end the call due to students coming into the room after school to pick up their instruments and rehearse. I will never forget the tone in his voice of relief when I was able to give him the opportunity to share and connect with someone outside of his isolation. It really drove home for me how important our communities are and how we have to put extra time and effort into building those connections.