Parents’ involvement is crucial for the success of the program. We will integrate the parents into the classroom in a variety of ways, keeping open channels of communication which will be truly reciprocal. It is very important for us that all families feel welcome and become active participants of their children’s education throughout the school year. Conversations from both directions- school and family initiated, will be continuous, focusing on their child’s educational experience as well as the larger program. For families that are struggling to communicate in English, additional supports will be offered in advance (in the form of a translator).

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Additionally, the school will invite families to share resources such as knowledge and skills, and encourage their active participation in the school. For example, a teacher can offer parents to schedule in advance a visit to come and read a book, help with an art activity, or share another activity reflecting their talent. In addition, parents will have the opportunity to be quiet observers for one window of time during the year, so they can get a more intimate feeling of what goes on in their child’s school life on a daily basis.

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The school will encourage some additional learning activities to take in their homes and into the community, to enhance children’s early learning, as well as support and encourage families’ efforts to create a learning environment beyond the school’s capacity. Learning activities and creative projects will be sent home with the child, and will include a blurb that will explain its purpose and instructions for how to use it with the child.

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In order to create a better platform of communication between parents and teachers, there will be a daily blog wherein the teacher will provide information on the daily activities that took place in the classroom, which will include photos of the children. Only the class parents will be able to access this blog. In order to communicate more personal notes between teachers and parents, there will be a free line of communication throughout emails, checked daily. In addition to the blog, there will be a group texting service like Remind, which can make parents’ life easier by sending reminders for anything that needs to take place soon.

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Every day, the teacher will be open to engage with parents in short conversations during drop-off and pick-up, where short details about the child’s doing and progress can be offered from both ends. Additionally, outside of the classroom will be a magnetic board that will display the activities of the day, the name of the book that will be read, and other necessary information. This can help parents understand better what to expect of the day and offer them a more specific opportunity to engage with the kids as they know the curriculum that was covered. At the beginning of the school year, parents will be asked to fill in a short survey wherein they can share their child’s interests and talents, their questions or ideas about the curriculum, and some basic instructions as for the variety of media through which parents can communicate with the teacher and the school.

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Once a month there will be a newsletter that will share in more detail how the past month has been, what special activities took place, what content and developmental domains have been covered, and skills acquired. Extracurricular activities in the spirit of what has been done, or what comes ahead, will be offered, as well as community activities that they may participate in with their whole families. Photos, as well as some of the kids’ drawings, will also be part of the newsletter.

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Ahead of time, it will be useful for the teacher and the school to know which families are in need of support in terms of communicating in English. We will create a special plan to be able to include these families in our ongoing communications, and extend our efforts in making them feel part of the community through the help of translators, as well as other families in the community who may be able to serve as a supporting family- peer networking if you may.

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Throughout the year, there will be a few special outreach events that will take place, and the school will reach out to the community and the families to ask for volunteers in making it happen. Such events will include- celebrating the holidays, breakfast for all, extended family day (grandparents/caretakers), bake sales, PJs & movie night, Arts & crafts weekend, and school trips. The school has an open-door policy, as we want to ensure that parents feel that they are in an inclusive, welcoming and supporting community. This is a priority at Rainbows, and any feedback from parents about our lines of communication are always welcome.