The ways we communicate

My son's school recently had a boosterthon. It was one of those fun runs where the children all gather pledges per laps and the school uses the funds to purchase more technology. During the pledge drive, I received a daily email from the school, as well as numerous messages from the teachers and voicemail blasts about special pledge nights.

It was a little much.

The school met the fundraising goal, but by the third day, I think I stopped reading/listening to the messages. I really hope I didn't miss anything important that was dropped into the middle of the fundraising.

All of those messages - combined with the alerts from the app that my son's teachers use and the texts from the school when there are changes in buses - makes me think that the school has a bit of a communication problem. I am sure that I didn't even get the full force of that problem as I am not on facebook and didn't receive the notices from that avenue.

Communication between schools and parents is vital. And I am OK with over-communication. But I think it is important for schools to pay attention to what methods parents prefer. Most of us still like to hear everyday communications from teachers via emails. I can understand that: We can read those at our leisure and they don't feel like they need our immediate attention.

It's hard to disrupt a teacher's entire plans at this point in the year, however, so maybe I'll save my feedback on the app use and voicemail blasts for non-urgent communications for the end of the year. Who knows...maybe I am in the minority and lots of parents enjoy the regular updates throughout the school day.

How does your school send you information? Tell me about it in the comments.