Setting Communication Expectations

by Renée Cockrell, MAT, NBCT
This post outlines an Expectations for Electronic Communication Plan for my school. These expectations serve the following purposes:

• protecting students, staff, and the district
• raising awareness of acceptable ways to use electronic communication tools when communicating with students and parents
• raising awareness of the positive and negative outcomes that may result in using these tools with students and parents.

Safety for Electronic Communications

Electronic communications should be governed by the same rules of propriety and formality as other written communications between staff, students, parents, and other stakeholders. If a topic or interaction would make you uncomfortable to discuss alone with a student, parent, or other staff member, it is likely inappropriate for electronic communication as well. Generally, the best rule to follow is that if you feel any doubt whatsoever about whether or not something meets the expectations of formal, professional communication, you should not respond to it or send it but instead confer with a school counselor and administrator for assistance. Remember that electronic communications in all forms are legal, written records in a court of law. Assume that it is possible or even likely that the sum total of your electronic communications with parents, staff, and students may be subpoenaed in the event of a legal dispute. If you would be uncomfortable with even a single line of a single message being read aloud in a courtroom, you should not send such a message. 

If you receive electronic communications that do not meet the standards of professional communication, confer with administration before replying to them, regardless of whether these communications have been sent by staff, students, or parents. Engaging in unprofessional or inappropriate discourse, even when you have not initiated said discourse, can result in major consequences.

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

Consequences of inappropriate communication can occur for staff, students, parents/guardians and family members, and community stakeholders. While staff and students can be subject to disciplinary measures in accordance with district policy, parents/guardians, family members, and community stakeholders may face legal action if they engage in inappropriate communication, electronically or otherwise. 

Acceptable Ways to Use Electronic Communications

To communicate with parents and students via email, you should only use the email addresses listed in our online gradebook database and you should only use your assigned school district email address. There are no situations in which it would be appropriate or professional to use your personal email address for communication with staff, students, or parents. Additionally, all electronic communications must be logged in the visits folder of our computer gradebook, just as all phone calls and meetings must be logged. You should not ever text message a student or parent from your personal phone. You must use the official school district messenger service to send out such alerts. In no case should students or parents contact you on your personal cellular device. 

All of the rules that apply to other forms of communication hold true for electronic communications, including specifically the outright ban on sexual, obscene, abusive, or otherwise inappropriate content.

Possible Outcomes of Electronic Communication

There are many possible positive outcomes of appropriate and professional electronic communication. As a teacher in our school, you are expected to contact the parents or guardians of your advisees a minimum of once monthly. If an advisee is having behavioral struggles or is not passing one or more classes, you are expected to contact guardians a minimum of twice monthly. Electronic communication such as email is an appropriate and acceptable format for communicating progress updates if the parent or guardian has provided a working email address. However, for communicating serious or potentially upsetting concerns about behavior or poor academic performance, a phone call is generally best, as emails provide little opportunity for contextualizing information or establishing a warm and caring tone.

Under the right circumstances, electronic communication can be beneficial for a number of reasons: it allows you to send a message during your plan period even if it is early in the morning and it would not be appropriate to make a phone call at that time; it is relatively quick and easy, making it perfect for sending progress updates and positive feedback; and by using the Blackboard interface, it is possible to send mass emails as needed, saving a great deal of time compared with calling every parent or guardian for a given class of students. Indeed, while saving time by utilizing electronic communication when it is an appropriate mode of contacting parents or guardians, you can increase the number of times you contact home for positive reasons, which according to Aguilar (2012), has been shown to improve classroom behavior and buy in as well as to result in improvements to student culture.

There are, unfortunately, also many potential negative outcomes of engaging in inappropriate or unprofessional electronic communications, including but not limited to the following: formal censure, termination, and legal action. Even when an electronic communication is intended in the most positive and professional possible way, it can be misinterpreted more easily than a conversation face-to-face or over the phone, so it is always best to have potentially inflammatory or difficult conversations with the added element of verbal tone, ability to respond immediately, and even with other staff members (such as a counselor or administrator) present as necessary. 

References

Aguilar, E. (2012, August 20). The power of the positive phone call home: Calling students’ parents or guardians with good news encourages more good behavior and creates strong teacher-student bonds.” Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/power-positive-phone-call-home-elena-aguilar

Colorado Springs School District 11. (2016). Appropriate use of technology resources and internet safety. Retrieved from https://www.d11.org/cms/lib/CO02201641/Centricity/Domain/816/Student%20Technology%20User%20Agreement.pdf

The Bijou School. (2016). Staff handbook: Social media/personal email access. (p. 13). Retrieved from http://intranet.d11.org/k12/bijou/Shared%20Documents/Handbooks/Bijou%20Staff%20Handbook%202015-2016%20klp.pdf