Parent Engagement at Independent Schools WHAT TO EXPECT Edwin Malet
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ARENT-SCHOOL COMMUNICATION HAS TAKEN on new importance during the pandemic. Long touted as a major reason to send your children to an independent school, the quality of how schools communicate, what they communicate, and how effectively they listen to parents—particularly over the last 18 months—have all become even more pressing parental concerns. SCHOOL ADMINISTRATIONS AT THE CROSSROADS School administrators and staff have stood squarely in the crossroads of the communication network. For the most part, independent schools opened on schedule this past school year, and stayed open. This did require installing special safety protocols relating to vaccinations, masks, hand-washing, social distancing, class size, remote learning, sports and other extracurricular activities’ adjustments.
As of early summer 2021, schools had hoped this September would be back to normal. As schools opened, however, it sometimes seemed like a rerun of 2020, though perhaps with the benefit of some lessons learned. Parents, for their part, have also had to make judgments: basically, whether to trust their schools. In general, they did. Their kids finished the 2020–21 school year without a major outbreak of the virus. For 2021–22, it seems the trust will continue. COMMUNITY BUILDING If there is one factor on which that trust has been founded, schools credit the parent communities they’ve built and sustained. For example, Michele Godin, Communication Director at Episcopal Academy, spoke of the school’s continued focus on keeping its parents “just as connected with the school as their children are.” CountyLinesMagazine.com | October 2021 | County Lines
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