Communication Strategy Plan

Communication Strategy Plan
Supreeda Scribner
Central Washington University

Communication Strategy Plan for Teachers, Parents, and Students at Auburn Mountain View High School
Introduction of the Communication Strategy Plan The purpose of this communication strategy plan is to provide a platform where teachers, parents, and students can communicate freely on issues surrounding students. This communication strategy plan is based on the evidence that effective communication leads to the improvements in student’s attendance, academic performance, and good behaviors (Hafizi & Papa, 2012). Therefore, the communication strategy plan aims at bringing several technological platforms together in a bid to bring maximum outcome.
Evidence shows that communication between teachers and parents tends to reduce once the students reach high school (Hafizi & Papa, 2012; MacIver, Epstein, Sheldon, & Fonseca, 2015). The resulting communication breakdown has denied high school students the emotional, moral, and material support that parents would otherwise offer if they were aware of what their children are going through in high school. Therefore, this communication strategy plan will restore the hopes of struggling students.
Purpose Relation to Organizational Goals, Strategies, and Culture Teachers, parents, schools, and school districts share a common desire of the American where no child is left behind (MacIver et al., 2015). However, teachers have to deal with the realities, where students tend to have different abilities to grasp concepts.

Struggling students tends to perform poorly not because they have little intelligence but because they are slow learners. The financial constraint in many households is yet another obstacle that prevents high schools from achieving uniformity (Shumow & Schmidt, 2014). This communication strategy plan provides an excellent opportunity for teachers, parents, and school administrations to support struggling students and assist them to catch up with their better-performing classmates.
On the same note, it is worth pointing out that American high schools have been adopting strategies that embrace technology (Sahin, 2005). School districts are now seeking new ways of communication in the wake of increased adoption of technology among teachers, parents, and students (Shumow & Schmidt, 2014). For example, increased Internet usage in homes and schools gives room for more convenient ways of communication such as emails, and social media. This communication strategy focuses on using several available communication strategies. The idea is to provide several options to allow parents choose methods of communication that suit their lifestyles, level of education, and income (Sahin, 2005). In doing so, parents and students will be encouraged to communicate more often and make the necessary follow-ups that will ensure timely actions.
As indicated earlier, students, parents, and teachers are used to culture that embraces constant communication, engagement of parents in school matters, and the parent-teacher cooperation to improve student’s performance. Before students join high school, the students are used to a culture that allows parents to communicate with teachers consistently. However, this culture tends to fade away in high school as parents start seeing their children as young adults rather than children (Shumow & Schmidt, 2014). Therefore, this communication plan fits into the culture that students are used to before joining high school. While the communication plan acknowledges the need to give high school students freedom, it provides a platform where teachers and parents will continue to communicate for the sake of the student’s future.
Stakeholders/Groups External Stakeholders
Parents
Parents are important stakeholders since their involvement with their children’s schooling leads to numerous positive outcomes. Firstly, the approval of parents will be required before implementing the communication plan. Secondly, the purpose of the scheme is to encourage parents to make follow-ups and participate in efforts to assist their children to cope with their peers academically. Therefore, parents are important stakeholders since the communication plan creates a platform for them to understand what is happening with their children. Since they can observe the performance of their children, parents can take the necessary measure promptly.
School District Superintendent
The School District Superintendent is the administrator who is in charge of the high school within the school districts. The manager is interested in improving the performance of the secondary level students within his district. Involving the manager will assist in ensuring that the plan gets the much-needed approval from the ministry of education. The superintendent will be in a position to coordinate the same communication plan in all the high schools in the school district. In doing so, all the schools within the district will register the positive results as expected.
Internal Stakeholders
High School Principal
Just like the school district superintendent, high school principals are interested in assisting struggling students to catch up with their active learning peers. The desire to reduce school dropout cases is yet another good reason why engaging school principals will bring the desirable outcome. The head will pay a crucial role in the implementation the communication plan. Although they will not participate in the communication directly, they will facilitate the communication by providing leadership and material support.
Teachers
As mentioned earlier, high school teachers feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of teaching, monitoring, and supporting their students psychologically. Teachers have always wanted to work in an environment where parents can play their role in motivating their children and monitoring them while they are outside the school compound. Therefore, the communication plan provides an excellent opportunity for teachers to discuss and address issues affecting students’ academic performance, attendance, and psychology. Specifically, the communication plan provides a platform where teachers can share the outcomes of their students with parents. With the platform, parents will start appreciating the efforts that teachers put in ensuring that all students perform well in their classes.
Students
The entire communication plan focuses on assisting student deal with the many challenges facing them in school. While these students need the support of their parents, they also want freedom. Therefore, engaging them will prevent any resistance that might arise. For example, some students might be unwilling to share information about their school attendance, disciplinary cases, and academic performance. However, engaging them and convincing them to support the communication plan will ensure that they accept the system and allow parents and teachers to guide them out of undesirable attitudes, studying technique, or social groups that are messing their lives while in high school.
Communication Channels
Strategy and Methods Alma Online Management System
Alma Company is one of the many web-based platforms that allow teachers to post students’ academic results for parent and students to see (Alma, n.d.). The company will need to tailor the online students’ portals to accommodate the features that teachers need to communicate with parents. For example, the involvement of the company will facilitate the design of a user-friendly format that will allow parents to post their comments under student’s results (iSpring, 2015). With the provision, parents can post their supportive messages once they see the academic reports of their children. Therefore, the involvement of Alma Company in the communication will assist in making the necessary changes to the online platform to accommodate the concerns of users. In summary, a student portal presents the following:
Student’s attendance report
Visualized data of student’s academic performance
Emergency communication
Group messaging for students, parents, and staff
Text alerts
Parent/student portal with visualized data on students’ academic performance
Email (Gmail)
The electronic mail is yet another communication channel that will support the online management system. Teachers will use email to communicate to parents about new details about the performance of their children. In response, parents can express their views or seek further information about their children. Therefore, the email will provide the much-needed parent-teacher constant communication. Gmail is an ideal email since it relates to the Google Classroom, which ties different services from Google Company to creating a digital learning platform. Gmail provides classroom communication since the school can invite students to classes through the school’s database.
Implementation and Timeframe Implementation
The implementation process will start in the second week of December before schools break for winter break. The principal will hold an internal meeting with the teachers. The aim of the initial meeting is to inform the teachers about the new communication plan. The meeting will be important for allowing teachers to air their grievances and suggest improvements that will facilitate minor changes on the communication strategy plan. A week later, a special meeting will be held for teachers, parents, and officials from the school district. This conference will focus on informing parents about the need for a new communication plan to address the problems associated with the many communication barriers. Parents will be given two weeks (December 20-January 4) to think about the idea and talk to their children before the new communication strategy plan starts working in the second week of 2017. Meanwhile, during the two weeks, Alma will be contacted and given the school database for all the students. This is a strategic way of saving time and ensuring the platform is ready by the second week of January 2017.
Proposed Meetings Timeframe
December 12, 2016: Initial meeting between School Principal and School District Superintendent
December 13, 2016: Internal meeting between School Principal and Teachers
December 19, 2016: Special meeting involving teachers, parents, and school’s administration
January 3, 2017: Second meeting involving teachers, parents, and school administration
January 4, 2017: Third Meeting involving teachers, parents, and students
Indicators of Effectiveness As mentioned earlier, the objectives of implementing this communication plan revolve around positive student performance. Therefore, the performance indicators will measure whether the specific objectives have been attained. The indicators will also assess whether the improvements are satisfactory or insignificant. The assessment will be conducted twice per semester. Since each semester is divided into two nine-week marking periods, the evaluation will be performed during the marking period.
In summary, the following indicators will be used
Academic Performance
The assessment of the performance of students will determine whether the new communication plan has improved academic performance. Specifically, the performance of each student will be compared with his or her past grades to ascertain the significance of the improvements. In doing so, students will start competing with their previous performance rather than their peers.
Attendance Rates
The school attendance will be calculated to measure the frequency at which students are skipping specific classes. The online-based software will provide an automatic calculation of the percentage of attendance for specific subjects. A comparison of the outcome with the previous attendance will provide a clear assessment of how the new communication strategy has improved attendance.
The attitude of Students
The management will develop a survey aimed at collecting the attitudes of students towards several issues. The study will use Likert scale to measure the degree of agreement or disagreement on a particular issue. For instance, the question of whether students are happy with the involvement of parents in their school matters. Conducting the survey before and after the implementation of the study will provide a measure of any change in attitude.
Attitudes of Parents
The change in the sentiments of parents about teachers’ efforts and other issues surrounding the performance of their children can also be measured using a survey. Collecting their views using Likert scale will allow the quantification of their points of view. For instance, the question on how often they communicate with teachers can assist in measuring any improvements on the frequency of communication.
References Alma. (n.d.). Alma Features & Pricing | Transforming K-12 Data into Insight. Retrieved December 04, 2016, from http://www.getalma.com/features.htmlHafizi, A., & Papa, M. (2012). Improving the quality of education by strengthening the cooperation between schools and families. Problems of Education in the 21st Century, 42, 38-49.
Mac Iver, M. A., Epstein, J. L., Sheldon, S. B., & Fonseca, E. (2015). Engaging Families to Support Students’ Transition to High School: Evidence from the Field. The High School Journal, 99(1), 27-45.
Sahin, I. (2005). Understanding faculty adoption of technology using the learning/adoption trajectory model: A qualitative case study. TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 4(1).
Shumow, L., & Schmidt, J. A. (2014). Parent Engagement in Science with Ninth Graders and With Students in Higher Grades. School Community Journal, 24(1), 17.
iSpring. (2015, September 17). Top 10 Online Gradebooks for Teachers. Retrieved December 04, 2016, from http://www.ispringsolutions.com/blog/top-10-online-grade-books-for-teachers/