modes of communication. School personnel participants believed it was their responsibility to effectively communicate with parents for parental involvement to occur. Based on school
78
personnel responses during the focus group session, this is done by multiple modes of communication from. For example, Ms. Fraizer stated:
My biggest part of trying to increase parental involvement is communication, whether it’s through phone calls or face to face contact or email or Class Dojo, you connect with the parent to let them know that you and that parent together are there for their child and to let them know that you are invested in making sure their child succeeds.”
Class Dojo is an app for positive behavior reinforcement, and it allows teachers to communicate with parents through information sharing (Kaldor, 2014). With this communication tool, parents receive instant messages from teachers through text messaging or email. Ms. Nelson explained the use of Class Dojo as a schoolwide communication strategy to increase parental involvement:
I would say at our school, well I can’t speak to prior to November, but I would say after December we had what I feel like an increased level of at least parent awareness of what was happening in our building through the use Class Dojo. Use communication tools to increase parent awareness like an app where we could connect with peers and teachers were proactive about posting pictures of what was happening in their classrooms to help parents be able to have conversations with kids about what was happening at school and then also to be able to communicate with teachers immediately about whatever it was, how a student’s day went really well or they needed some support at home with this, or they’re not going to ride the bus home tonight or whatever that was.
The other four participants nodded their heads in agreement as Ms. Nelson explained the use of the Class Dojo by teachers as a communication tool for parental involvement.
In addition, during the individual school personnel interviews, five out of six participants identified using multiple modes of communication as their role in parental involvement. Some of the different modes included communication apps, as well as in-person contacts. During the one-
79
on-one interviews, participants were asked to define parental involvement. While defining parental involvement, many identified their role within the definition. For example, Ms. Hill’s definition of parental involvement included communication between the teacher and parent. She detailed her role in this communication:
I use Class Dojo all the time and that’s my communication piece. I also have a website that my parents would go to all the time. If you don’t get the homework, if you don’t look in that backpack you can go on that website and get the homework. I leave you with no excuses. You pull up that website and you pull up that homework because it’s right there.
The other participants’ perceptions were aligned with Ms. Hill’s belief about her role and communication. Ms. Davis explained her role in communicating with parents:
Communication with parents is important because they’re the experts on their kids. Who better to go to if there’s questions or concerns or even for celebrations? They [parents] have been with them from the start, I mean the ones who were their very first teachers. I try to communicate with families in the mode that works best for them. It has been phone calls, emails, newsletters, notes home and messages through Class Dojo. Similarly, the focus group session for parent participants revealed communication as an important role for school personnel, including using multiple modes of communication. This was also the same for the one-on-one parent interviews. Compared to the five school personnel participants, four of the six parent participants shard this perspective during their interviews.
During the parent focus group, parents expressed gratitude for the open-door policy created by teachers for communicating. According to Mr. Franklin, “teachers set up the Class Dojo and also communicate through emails. I would always feel like there was an open-door policy that you can always go and talk to the teacher. I love it!” He began to reflect on what communication
80
consisted of over the years his children have attended school at the study site. Mr. Franklin continued:
For as long as I can remember, even with my son who has graduated, they [teachers] would always give me a syllabus, introducing who they were, what they were going to do, and how I could get in contact with them. Then, you know, they would have a page on the back, you know, send that back to them so they can stay in contact with me.
During the focus group, session parents were asked to finish this sentence, when I think about being a partner with my child’s teacher, I feel. This prompt led Ms. Adams to discuss the role of communication, “I feel better about them [my children] learning because this teacher is
communicating with me, so we could communicate together to teach this one child, that shows me that this teacher got the best interest for this child.” When Ms. Clarkson defined parental
involvement during the one-on-one interview she stated, “involvement is teachers communicating. We communicate via text and Class Dojo. Teachers can also call and email.” Parent participants believed it was the role of teachers to use multiple modes of communication to share student progress. According to Ms. Carter, “the teacher will text, call, or email me to let me know how my granddaughter is doing.” This data was triangulated with the on-site observations.
Field notes. The observations of the Back to School Night and PTO meeting at the study site confirmed this theme. In front of the school, there is a large marquee near the main road. The marquee is double-sided, which made it possible to see the sign whether families are headed East or West. The study site used the marquee as a communication tool to share upcoming events with parents and the community. The marquee contained pertinent and up to date information. At the PTO meeting, the parent liaison provided a September calendar for parents. The calendar detailed all school events for parents’ knowledge and convenience. Communication emerged during the review of school documents as well. There were multiple newsletters from the parent liaison. The
81
study site sends home monthly newsletters with information from the Parent Resource Center. The newsletters contained upcoming school and community events. There was also a section on the newsletter that shared contact information for the parent liaison and available resources in the Parent Resource Center.