Positive Phone Calls Home

 Greetings blog readers!  Wow, it's been a while.  Yes, my fingers do still work. Life is busy.

Each year, my school collects data from parents at the end of the year via a survey.  The data is analyzed with the hope of finding ways to improve our business of being a great school.  Last year, one piece of feedback our administration team extracted from the surveys was that we (as a staff) could improve on communication to parents.  Further, trends showed that when we do communicate with parents, we often only do so when situations are unfavorable (i.e. when students are in trouble, struggling with grades, excessively tardy / absent, etc.). 

In response, our administrative team presented the staff with a task / goal for the year. Collectively, we will make a positive phone call home at least once for every student in the school. Not an email; not a message via Infinite campus; a phone call.

The rollout was simple.  Our principal created a Google sheet w/ the name of every student in the school on it. He shared the document with the staff.  Each staff member is to make one phone call home each week. After doing so, the teacher writes their name next to the student's name in the spreadsheet along with the date of contact home.  Repeat each week, making sure to choose a student's house to call who hadn't already been contacted.

Is calling the home of every student in the school feasible, you ask?  Yes, I believe it is.  If each staff member does what is being asked of them, each member should call about 15-20 homes during the year according to my primitive calculations.  Considering we have well over 20 weeks in a school year, I believe this is very feasible.

Initially, this task seemed like one more thing added to my workload.  I don't mind making phone calls to parents, but finding the time to do so - during the school day - could be a challenge. (We were instructed to make the phone calls from our school phone versus our cell phones.)  However, our principal has made a strong effort to give us 15 minutes each week to complete this task. Our principal challenged us to try to initially choose students who wouldn't typically get a positive phone call home. 

We are now about 10 weeks into the year and I have completed my task each week.  The empirical feedback I am gathering incredible.  Typically, the phone calls last between one and three minutes. On more than on occasion, I had to convince a parent that their child was not in trouble.  I've also had more than one parent tell me that when they saw the caller ID identify that the call was coming from the High School, the feeling of panic and concern flooded their system.  This evidence supports the survey data from last spring - our school was not doing a great job of communicating with parents except for in the cases of negative situations.

Moreover, many parents verbalized that the phone call made their day and were very thankful for receiving it. This feedback, in turn, often made my day and provided a burst of adrenaline to my system. I now look forward to making a positive phone call each week, so much so that last week I made two calls!  I plan to make a second call each week to the home of a student who is a high flyer.  After all, at some point everyone will need to get a call home!

I'm excited to see (not if, but) when we finish the task this year and I'm curious if we will see any changes in the survey results next spring.  I'm also curious to know if the school's long distance phone bill has dramatically increased... because I've learned that quite a few parents have cell phones that require us to call long distance.