A Checklist to Guide You Through Family Conversations

Our step-by-step guide on preparing for family conversations will ensure they walk away empowered to be a partner in their student's learning.

I remember the day vividly. As a new teacher, I had my first one-to-one parent conversation about one of my students. The student had been struggling in class, and his parents scheduled a meeting to discuss his progress. I had no clue how to lead the conversation, so I asked other teachers in my building. They all had different advice, and I still felt lost.

During the meeting, the family asked me for activities they could do at home to best support their child's learning. I realized how ill-prepared I was. I was ready to show them the student's grades, and discuss his work. But I hadn't even considered what they could do at home.

The meeting totally changed how I viewed my parent meetings. I realized that the purpose was not to only have a one-way informative conversation, but to enhance the partnership between me and a student's family, so that together we could improve academic and social outcomes.

If you've ever felt the same way, I've done the research for you so you don't have to wonder how to lead a conversation with students' families. Even if you have your own strategy, I've found checklists to help make sure I don't forget any important information in my family meetings.

Download the Checklist

Included in the Checklist

Material and Conversation Meeting Prep

Be fully prepared for a family meeting with our checklist of materials and conversation points to bring to a family meeting.

Examples of Useful Phrases to Communicate Progress

Using the guide's useful phrases will help you discuss when:

A student is struggling
A student needs improvement
A student is progressing
A student is exceeding

Questions to Ask in the Meeting

Collaboration between families and school staff are so effective because it brings together content and context expertise. You as a staff member are the experts in the content knowledge that marks important learning milestones for students. Families are the context experts, knowing their child beyond the classroom.

The guide's high impact questions help you deeply understand how to meet a student's needs by bringing together your content expertise with a family's context expertise. From the family's knowledge, you can understand what motivates their student and other important information that can improve outcomes at school.

See the questions to ask in family meetings.

Discuss High Impact Activities to Do at Home

Based on your conversation from the questions you've asked, share which activities you think would be most impactful for the student. See our activity ideas.

Post-Meeting Activities

By following our post-meeting checklist, you won't lose any of the takeaways and next steps from the meeting.

Do you have anything else I should add to my checklist? I'd love to hear from you in the comments!

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