Parent Coronavirus Communications: What Small Schools are Forgetting!

Dear friend, 

Here's some tips for what you need to remember when creating communications for parents. 

What I'm seeing a lot of schools do is focus on the academic support or distanced learning programs that students need. So many schools are having to create these from scratch and the amount of energy required to implement them is huge. 

But along the way, we've forgotten some major things about communications: they have to serve our families where they are TODAY, in this crisis. 

So if parents are now at home working while trying to teach school, we have to provide resources that help them do that. If parents are losing their jobs and worried about tuition, we have to speak to that. Wherever our community is, we have to create transparent and supportive content 

Right now, parents have never had this experience with children. Think about it...in the world we live in it's usually a lot of go-go-go with families working a lot and children busy with baseball, soccer, and ballet. 

During a normal day, parents would not be spending this much time with their children! It's never been full whole days where we're all together. They've never experienced togetherness at this level. 

While of course we all want this quality family time, going from a super-scheduled existence to 100% time together while still trying to work and school your children presents a whole list of challenges.

This is an opportunity for schools to speak about these issues and support parents through them. For example:

• How do parents set up routines and schedules that help children and parents get things done and stay sane?
• What words are good to use with children?
• How do you offer choices to get your child to actually participate in distance learning?
• What teaching tips can the school provide to help engage your child in learning (parents are not teachers!!)?
• What activities can children do while a parent is on an important Zoom conference call (besides TV!)?
• How can parents handle the stress and overwhelm of this situation while also being there for their children (and not flipping out!)?
• How are you supporting families who are losing income and need tuition help?

These are just a few topics to think about while creating content during this time of crisis. Remember: serve your families where they are. Listen to their challenges and then address and support them!

Check out more tips in this video. 

I'm here for you. 

Aubrey

Aubrey Bursch, Founder, Easy School Marketing

P.S. I'm here for small independent schools during this challenging time. I want to support you! Schedule a free strategy session with me to discuss strategies to help your school during the coronavirus health crisis.