Ms. Monks is an ENL teacher for grades 1-6 in Oceanside, NY. She heard about TalkingPoints through an email from a co-worker who had started using it. This was right before parent-teacher conferences, so Ms. Monks set up her account and told her parents about the new text messaging program during conferences. She showed them sample messages on her phone to explain how it works.
Ms. Monks tried several different methods of communication for getting in touch with her parents before using TalkingPoints. She tried calling, but language barriers proved to be an issue, and also tried sending emails and notes home in the parents’ home languages using Google translate. Once she started using TalkingPoints to send text messages to parents about what’s happening in class, extra help sessions and positive behaviors, she started hearing back from them right away. Most of all, TalkingPoints has allowed her to reach parents she hasn’t been able to reach before. Here’s one of the success stories she wanted to share:
“A single mom of one of my students is always working and has been hard to reach due to her work schedule. I wasn’t able to get in touch with her before, but now we’re in touch on a daily basis through TalkingPoints. She’s in the loop on how her child is doing and it’s making a difference in her child’s behavior at school.
The student has been much more responsible, returning forms and showing up to extra help sessions and participating in after school activities. Sending text message reminders to his mom has helped. He is now more involved in the school community due to my having direct communication with the parent.”
Ms. Monks is thankful that she’s able to reach all of her students’ parents using her TalkingPoints account and has been recommending TalkingPoints to other teachers at her school.
