Communicating to Create Happy Families with Jennifer Larson Transformative Principal 290 Social media: If you have a good communication system and everyone is engaged, there’s a positive buzz to the school. Jennifer Larson is he co-founder and CEO of Hive Digital Minds, which provides parent-school communication solutions through schoolbzz.com Completely overwhelmed Couldn’t keep up. Shift towards personalized learning means there are a lot of different adults supporting a student. “I don’t even read the newsletter anymore.” Parents want to know what the two or three places for information. Grades communication is an important part of it as well. School website is a great marketing tool to recruit students, teachers, and families to your school. Figure out what information you want to share with the public and put that on the web site. Find tools that work well for your enrolled families. Build a communication strategy that gets information to the families quickly and efficiently. Do a communication audit to see what you are currently using. Which have information that parents might want access to. Need to implement a multi-year strategy. Talk to your parents. When schools jump into parent engagement, they are probably meeting the needs of those who were already having their needs met. Challenges around native languages spoken. Focus on mobile. Recognize that not all parents can be there physically at the school. Parent engagement is about making sure the families understand the value of education. Volunteer hours. Parents want to be engaged but they don’t know how. If you have a good communication system and everyone is engaged, there’s a positive buzz to the school. If you have happy families at your school, there is no other better testimonial. How to be a transformative principal? It all comes down to communication. Connect with each of your staff members and parents. Schedule a call with Jethro Are you feeling like you are always behind at school? Do you feel like you need about 2 more hours each day to accomplish everything? Here’s how I help principals work manageable hours: Create your ideal week, so that you can leave work at work and enjoy your life! Please take a moment to rate this podcast in iTunes or on Stitcher.  Please follow me on Twitter: @jethrojones for the host and @TrnFrmPrincipal for the show. Buy Communication Cards Show notes on TransformativePrincipal.com Download Paperless Principal.   Take Control of your email Web Site Transformative Principal on Stitcher Refer A Principal Best Tools for Busy Administrators Survey