Craig Verley

Ah, the spring semester in public schools. When the pace of things picks up as the end of the year draws closer. For some reason, it also seemed to be when we would see an uptick in safety-related responses on campuses.

Please tell me this wasn’t just in my district.

Regardless, among the many tools school communications pros should have in their toolbox are some template parent letters for a multitude of issues that you and/or the campuses may need to use to notify parents of certain things. This can be such a wide range of things, like: online security threats, trash fires, fights, police activity near a school, a knife reported and confiscated, a BB gun being brought to campus, etc.

When you are preparing these parent letters and notices to go out, are you also including something to encourage your parents to help be a part of controlling issues and improving safety for their child’s school?

Keeping schools safe places of learning takes a true group effort that should include all employees, students, visitors, parents, and even neighbors. Use your safety-related parent letters to not just inform them of what happened on campus, but also remind the parents that they can help keep schools safe and invite them to do so. It only takes a couple of quick, friendly sentences perhaps before the closing of the letter. Perhaps something along the lines of this:

Please take a moment to remind your child [the issue at hand] is not permitted and why. This can also include the importance of sharing online security threats instead of reporting them. Mention how anyone with a security concern can report it to any adult on campus, or how they can also use a special hotline reporting system if that is their preference. Be sure to include the hotline contact information (phone, text, app, online, email, etc.) Remind parents that they can play an important role in helping to keep schools safe places for learning. Be sure to thank them for their support in those efforts.

If you have not yet developed template letters as a part of emergency response plans, take a little bit of time and at least come up with a few variations of a paragraph that can be dropped into different safety-related notifications that remind parents of their role; and invite them to help. This will not only save you a little bit of time but also ensure that you and your team use consistent language in that part of the messaging that goes out to parents.