Calling Home

The week before spring break, I got this wild and crazy idea to call all students' parents. I have been told several times by those wiser than me at UNM to contact parents BEFORE kids do anything wrong. So, having missed my chance at the beginning of the year, I decided to take the oppurtunity and call home.
The experience was amazing and rewarding. I called each student back to discuss grades while the class worked independently on essays. I warned kids that I would be calling their parents. Then after school, I set to work. The first call was not encouraging. I had not asked my students if their parents spoke English! The following day, I found out language proficiency information on parents and sent home progress reports to those who did not speak English, about 20% of my classes. I would like to learn Spanish, but this is a long-term goal and cannot be accomplished over night. Although this experience did give me much more motivation.
I set to work calling parents again. Most of my students are doing well so far, so many reports gome were good. Parents were astounded that a teacher was taking time to call and let them know how well their students were doing. For those who were not doing as well, we created a success plan together during class and I told their parents how they can help. The students, parents, and I all have the same goal -to see students succeed. This was my mantra on the phone.
I don't think I spoke with a single parent who was not happy to hear from me. This was an awesome experience and I feel a lot more comfortable speaking with parents now.
On my teacher certification test I took last weekend, the one extended-answer essay question was about how to keep parents involved in student success. I felt like a pro.