Communicating with Parents

Communicating with Parents

    This past week, I sent home three emails about students inappropriately using their personal electronic devices in the classroom. In our classroom, we don’t allow students to use their phones unless the teachers, myself and my mentor teacher, allow it for an explicit purpose such as a Kahoot quiz. During all other class times, student phones must be put away and silent. I clearly expressed this to my students on the first day of class as we went over the syllabus and the consequences for violations of our rule pertaining to using electronic devices. The first violation results in a verbal warning from the teacher. The second violation results in a minor referral and email home to the parents/guardians of the student. The third violation results in a major referral and detention. The fourth and all following violations result in a referral to the administration for discipline.

    Thus far, students have been pretty good about not using their phones during class time. I have had to give verbal warnings to ten students or so during the first two weeks of class, and three students have violated the phone policy twice, resulting in emails home. Filling out the minor referral, which automatically send an email home, was a little awkward the first couple of times. It’s weird emailing a parent to say that their child has gotten in trouble for something, especially as a student teaching intern who wasn’t had to do this before. That being said, I had every student and teacher sign a form saying they had read and understood the syllabus, so I wasn’t too concerned with the parents reacting negatively.

    The outreach seems to have resolved the issue, although it may be too early to say. I think many students thought we were bluffing or being dramatic when we said we wouldn’t allow phones on the first day of class, but the referrals and emails home seem to have sent the message, because I have caught fewer students on their phones since the first email was sent home, and the three students who have second violations haven’t been on their phones since. I think this is one of the scenarios in which it’s useful that students talk to each other so much. Word spreads pretty quickly that when it comes to phone use in the classroom, we mean business.

    Although my communication with the parents of these students went reasonable well, I was surprised that I didn't receive a response from any of the parents. If I had received a minor referral from a teacher when I was a student, I know my parents would have responded with an apology and assurance that it wouldn’t happen again. Similarly, none of the students had their phones taken away by their parents, so it’s possible that they don’t see it as a big deal. I don’t want to have to assign detention for something relatively harmless like using a phone during class, but if I don’t enforce the rules we established at the beginning of the semester, students won’t respect them at all. Communicating with the students and parents about these policies should reduce the number of violations going forward.

    If I had a “do-over” of contacting the parents of those who had received two phone violations, I don’t think I would do anything differently. It hasn’t been long enough yet to see if the contact home will change student behavior long-term, but so far, it has worked well. If I had to do anything differently, I would maybe show students the Cell Phone Violation form we use to keep track of violations. Every time I see a student using their phone in class, I ask them to put their phone away, and record the details of the violation on the form, including the date of the violation and a description of what the student was doing and what the student was supposed to be doing. Each student has their own form, so I know exactly how many violations a student has at any given time. If I had shown this to students on the first day, it may have made it more clear that we were very serious about monitoring and disciplining infractions. Before I sent the first email home, I suspect many students thought I was bluffing. Now, they know I’m serious, but it may have been better to firmly establish that from the start.