---
name: communicating-with-families
description: Write to a child's parents, or to every family in the class. Use when a teacher needs to tell one family something about their child — progress, a concern, a behaviour incident, good news worth sending — or to send the whole class a newsletter, a unit overview, a trip letter, or a reminder. Works out what happened, what it means, and what happens next before drafting, delivers hard news plainly rather than burying it, and never singles a child out in a message going to everyone.
---

# Communicating with families

A parent reads one letter. They do not see the week that produced it, the four
other children who needed the same five minutes, or the three drafts. They see
whether the teacher knew what she wanted to say.

That is the whole job here. This skill decides **what goes in the letter, in
what order, and what must not go in at all**. It does not decide how the letter
sounds — `writing-in-a-human-voice` owns that, and this skill hands every draft
to it before anyone sees it.

The router (`using-gpa-skills`) owns the wider screen for what does not belong in
a planning conversation at all, the line at diagnosis, and how much detail about a
child is worth carrying. Where it ran, rely on it; this skill adds the part
specific to writing something a family keeps, and the floor below, which does not
depend on the router having run.

## Screen for safety first

A child in crisis, a safeguarding concern, or a live discipline incident is not a
drafting problem, and it is where this skill's own worst failure is sharpest: the
letter becomes a permanent record of the thing, made in the hours a call or a
referral was what the situation actually needed. Stop rather than working through
the questions below, and say that plainly. Help instead with what is in front of
the teacher — what to write down while it is fresh, and who to take it to, by the
pathway at `school/gpa-context.md#referral-pathway`; where that anchor is blank,
ask rather than naming a person or a pathway yourself.

## Answer three questions before you draft

A letter written before the teacher knows what she is asking for reads exactly
like one. Get all three answers first. Ask them together, in one short message,
not as an interview.

**What happened.** Not "he has been struggling." What did you see, in which
lesson, when, and how many times? Push for the number — a teacher nearly always
has it and nearly always leaves it out. Four missing assignments is a fact a
parent can act on. "Some difficulty with homework" is not.

**What it means.** What do you think is going on, and how sure are you? A letter
with no read in it is a data dump and leaves the parent to guess. A letter that
presents the read as fact is unfair, because the read is the part most likely to
be wrong. You need both, held apart.

**What happens next.** Three parts, and a letter is not finished without all
three:

- What you will do. Something specific and starting soon.
- What the family can do. **One** thing, small enough to happen this week. Three
  asks is zero asks.
- When they will hear again, with a date. A letter with no date is a letter the
  parent has to chase, and most will not.

If any answer is missing, ask for it. Do not draft around the gap and do not
supply the missing detail yourself.

There is a fourth question worth asking when the first three come back thin:
**what do you want this letter to achieve?** Sometimes the honest answer is "I
want it on record that I raised it." That is a legitimate letter, and it is a
different one — shorter, plainer, no ask.

## Which audience is this

Ask before drafting, because it changes every sentence.

**One family.** Name the child. Name the specific thing. The whole value of the
letter is that it could not have been sent to anyone else.

**The whole class.** Nobody is named and nobody is described. Not even kindly —
"a big thank-you to the three children who stayed to tidy up" tells every other
parent that their child did not. And never the group-shaped rebuke: "some
children have been unkind at lunch" reaches thirty families, twenty-eight of
whom now interrogate an innocent child, while the two who should read it decide
it means someone else.

If a class message keeps wanting to say something about particular children, it
is not a class message. It is a class message plus two notes home. Write all
three.

## Hard news goes near the top

Bad news goes plainly, in the first few sentences, in the active voice, with a
plain verb. Not "is still developing" for "is behind."

The failure looks like kindness. Three sentences of warmth, then the problem in
a subordinate clause in the middle paragraph, then a reassuring close. The
parent finishes it thinking things are broadly fine. Nothing was hidden; the
news was still lost — and when they find out later what the letter had actually
been about, they trust the next one less.

Warmth is not banned. It goes in **what happens next** — in the fact that you
have a plan, that you are not asking them to fix it alone, that you will write
again. Warmth that delays the news is not warmth.

This holds in the other direction too. Good news goes near the top for the same
reason: a parent who has to read to the fourth paragraph to find out their child
did something well will assume the opening was the real message.

## Keep the observation apart from the read

> Marcus has not turned in the last four math assignments.

That is an observation. It is either true or it is not, and the teacher can
stand behind it.

> Marcus seems overwhelmed.

That is a read. It may be right. It is not the same kind of thing, and a letter
that blends the two invites the parent to reject both at once.

Keep them visibly separate — separate paragraphs, and signal the change in the
prose. "Here is what I have seen" and "what I make of it" do the whole job. Then
run the test: **could the parent agree with the first paragraph and disagree
with the second without the letter falling apart?** If not, the read has leaked
into the observation.

The leak usually arrives as an adjective. Lazy, unmotivated, defiant, careless,
checked out, anxious, not trying — every one of those is a read wearing an
observation's clothes. What an observation is made of: a count, a date, a task
name, and something the child said or did that you could have filmed.

Say how sure you are, in the letter, in your own words. "I could be wrong about
why" costs nothing and is the sentence that keeps a parent talking to you.

## What does not go in a letter

A letter is a record. It gets forwarded, printed, and read again in two years by
someone who was not in the room. These stay out:

- **A diagnosis or a label.** Dyslexic, ADHD, on the spectrum, anxious. The
  router draws this boundary for the whole plugin; the added risk here is that a
  letter puts a teacher's guess in writing, under her name, permanently.
- **A comparison to another child.** Named or not. "Unlike most of the class"
  and "the other children have all finished" are the same sentence.
- **A prediction about the child's future.** Not ready for algebra, will
  struggle in middle school, needs to think about whether this is the right
  place. Nobody knows, and a parent will remember it for years.
- **Anything you would only say out loud.** A guess about what is happening at
  home, another family's business, a disagreement with a colleague, a doubt
  about a previous teacher.
- **A promise you cannot keep.** Including a turnaround time you have not
  checked and a meeting you cannot schedule.

Where the concern is past what a note can carry, say so and stop drafting. The
process for that is at `school/gpa-context.md#referral-pathway`; if that anchor
is blank, ask the teacher who this goes to rather than naming a person or a
pathway yourself.

And where the thing needs a conversation rather than a record — a serious
concern the family has not heard before, anything involving another child,
anything the teacher is angry about — the right letter is four lines long: what
it concerns, that you would rather talk than write, and two times you are free.
Offer to draft that instead. It is often the strongest thing you can produce.

## The school's own norms

How Grosse Pointe Academy sounds when it writes to families is recorded at
`school/gpa-context.md#house-voice`, and what it expects of teacher-to-parent
contact — channel, turnaround, when a call replaces a note, who gets copied — at
`school/gpa-context.md#family-communication-norms`.

**Where those are blank, ask.** Specifically: first names or titles with this
family, email or home in a folder, and whether anyone else needs to be copied.
Do not assume an administrator is copied, do not invent a role to copy, and do
not invent a channel. A wrong guess here is the kind that gets a teacher a
phone call she should not have had to take.

If a roster or gradebook tool is available, use it for the class list, the marks
and the assignment dates; otherwise ask the teacher, and never invent a name, a
mark or a date.

## Report card comments

A comment is the one-family letter under a length limit, written to a fixed
cycle, and written many at a sitting. Everything above still applies — the hard news
still goes first, the read is still labelled as a read, the exclusion list is
stricter rather than looser, because a report card is the most permanent thing a
teacher writes.

What the cycle is, how long comments run, and whether they are free text, a
comment bank, or standards-based marks is at
`school/gpa-context.md#report-card-cycle`; where that is blank, ask before
drafting, because the format decides how much of this fits.

Two things specific to the format:

- **A comment is not where a family first hears something serious.** If the news
  would surprise them, it belongs in a call before the report goes out. Say so
  rather than drafting it.
- **Check across the set, not just within one comment.** If every child in the
  class is working on "confidence," the set is not about particular children.
  Each comment should carry something only that one could have produced.

The ordering rule holds hardest here. Where a comment carries a real concern
rather than a working point, the concern opens it, and the shorter the format the
more that matters: a difficulty introduced in the last sentence of a short
comment reads as something the teacher hoped nobody would reach.

A short one, grade 4 reading. The ninety words it runs to are this example's own
and came from nowhere but this page; the school has not told us what its comments
run to, so take the shape and ask about the length rather than handing a teacher
a number as though it were the school's. Ella's comment carries a working point
rather than a concern, so it opens on what she can do:

> Ella reads fluently and has moved on to chapter books this term — she finished
> the first two Ramona books on her own. She reads past what she has not
> understood rather than going back, and it shows in her written answers about
> the plot. I think she is reading for speed. We are working on stopping at the
> end of each chapter and saying what just happened, and it would help if she
> were asked the same thing at home.

Observation, then the difficulty, then a read marked as one — "I think" is doing
that work inside a comment this short — then the next step and the ask. Nothing
in it could have been written about another child. Where the read is heavier than
"reading for speed," it does not go in the comment at all; it goes in the
conversation the comment prompts.

## Offer the reply-path

Good letters fail at the reply. The teacher sends something careful, the parent
answers at nine at night, and the second message undoes the first.

Once the draft is settled, offer to draft what she says if the parent pushes
back. Three shapes cover nearly all of it:

- **"That's not true — he says he did them."** Concede what you cannot see, hold
  what you observed, and stay on the next step. You did not see the work; you do
  know it did not reach you. Both can be said in one sentence.
- **"We don't see any of this at home."** Usually both are true, and saying so is
  the answer, not a retreat. The classroom is a different room with thirty
  people in it.
- **"It sounds like you're blaming him."** The letter landed as an accusation.
  Do not re-explain the letter — restate the observation flat, and restate what
  you are doing about it, which is the part they did not hear.

None of these relitigates. Each ends at the same place: the observation stands,
the plan stands, here is the date we look again.

## How to work

1. Ask which audience, and get the three answers. Do not draft first.
2. Read the school's norms at the anchors above; ask where they are blank.
3. Draft in this order: the news, what you saw, what you make of it, what
   happens next, the date.
4. Read it back as the parent. What is the first sentence they will read? Do
   they know what they are being asked to do? Is there a date?
5. Run the exclusion list over it. Diagnosis, comparison, prediction, staffroom
   talk, unkeepable promise.
6. If you can dispatch a subagent, have one read the draft cold as the parent
   and report back what it thinks happened and what is being asked; otherwise do
   that pass yourself, in sequence, before anyone sees the draft.
7. Apply `writing-in-a-human-voice` to the result. Always.
8. Present it, with the questions you could not answer and the offer of a
   reply-path.

## A note to one family, carrying a concern

Grade 6 math. The teacher has four missing assignments and a worry she cannot
prove. Every particular below came from her; none was supplied by the drafter.

> Dear Mr. and Mrs. Chen,
>
> Marcus has not turned in the last four math assignments — the ones assigned on
> the 6th, the 9th, the 13th and the 15th. He is in class every day and he is
> not in any trouble. The work is not coming in.
>
> Here is what I have seen. In class he starts the problem set, gets two or
> three problems in, and then stops. Twice last week he spent the rest of the
> period with the book open and nothing written. When I asked him about the
> missing work on Tuesday he told me he had done it and could not find it, and
> that he would bring it in Thursday. It did not come.
>
> What I make of that is less certain, and I want to be clear that this next
> part is my read rather than something I know. I think he has decided the work
> is beyond him, and that turning in nothing feels better than turning in
> something wrong. I may have the reason wrong. I am not wrong about the four
> assignments.
>
> What I am doing. From Monday the 19th I will sit with him for the first five
> minutes of independent work and watch him start, so I can see where he stops
> rather than guessing. I have also cut the four missed assignments down to one
> set of eight problems — I would rather he did eight properly than thirty badly.
>
> What would help from you. Not "did you do your math." Ask him to open the
> notebook and talk you through problem 3. If that goes badly, that is useful
> and I would like to hear about it.
>
> I will write to you again on Friday the 30th either way, and tell you what the
> two weeks looked like. If you would rather talk before then, send me a time and
> I will call.
>
> Ms. Whitfield

Why it is built that way: the fact is in the first sentence and it is a number,
not an impression. "He is not in any trouble" is there because it is the first
thing the parents will fear, and it is true. The observation paragraph is
filmable throughout — starts, stops, book open, and one thing Marcus actually
said. The read is labelled twice and conceded once, and it stops before "he has
given up on math," which is a prediction. The ask is one thing, it takes four
minutes, and it is phrased so the parents cannot get a yes-or-no answer that
tells them nothing. There is a date.

What is not in it: overwhelmed, anxious, avoidant, checked out. No comparison to
the class. No suggestion the parents should be doing more than they are. No
mention of what happens if this continues.

If the reply is "he says he turned them in": *I believe he means it. What I can
tell you is that nothing reached me on any of the four, and I check twice. I do
not need to settle where they went — I would rather use Monday to see him start
one, and write to you on the 30th.*

## A message to the whole class

Grade 3, start of a unit, plus a change families will not love. Same rules,
different mode. The homework nights, the email channel and the twenty minutes of
reading are this teacher's own and came from her; none of them is a Grosse
Pointe Academy practice, and none should be carried into a real letter unasked.

> **Third grade: measurement, and a change to homework nights**
>
> Two things this week.
>
> **Homework nights are changing.** From Monday, homework goes home on Monday
> and comes back Thursday, instead of going out Thursday and coming back Friday.
> I know Monday-to-Thursday is a tighter week for some households; the reason is
> that Friday returns leave me nothing to act on until the following week, and
> by then the lesson it came from is gone. If it does not work for your family,
> email me and we will sort something out for your child.
>
> **We start measurement on Monday** and it runs three weeks: rulers first, then
> scales, then measuring cups. Most of it happens in class and needs nothing
> from home.
>
> One thing that does. On the 14th each child needs to bring in an object from
> home that is between 10 and 20 cm long, to measure and pass around. Please do
> not buy anything — a wooden spoon, a paperback, a shoe. It comes
> home the same day.
>
> Reading twenty minutes a night carries on as usual.
>
> If you have a ruler at home, this is a good three weeks to leave it somewhere
> findable.
>
> Ms. Whitfield

Why it is built that way: the unwelcome item is first and the reason is given in
one sentence, not defended in four. The ask is dated, bounded, and explicitly
free. The last line is a small useful thing rather than a send-off.

What did not go in, and each of these was tempting: "thank you to the families
who always get homework back on time" — every other family reads that as being
about them. "A few children have been forgetting their reading books" — thirty
households now cross-examine a child, and the three who should read it will not.
"Some of the class found place value hard, so we are revisiting it" — the
children know exactly who that means, and so, by dinner, do their parents. Each
of those is either nothing or a note to one family.

## Handing it back

Present the finished letter in the conversation, whole and ready to paste, with
nothing in front of it. If a teacher points you at a file, write the final text
there and say where it went; otherwise the conversation is where it lives.

**That ordering is deliberately the reverse of the plugin-wide default** in
`using-gpa-skills`, which puts the artifact in a file where it can and uses the
conversation as the fallback. A letter is not an artifact a teacher returns to on
a check date; it gets pasted into an email and sent, and a copy on disk is a
record of one family that nobody asked to keep. Do not "correct" this to match
the router.

Alongside it, and never inside it, put:

- **The questions you could not answer.** The number you wanted, the date you
  guessed at, the name form you were not sure about. One answered question
  usually produces the best sentence in the letter.
- **The reply-path offer**, in a line.

Say plainly when the teacher's own draft did not need much. And say plainly when
the answer is not a letter at all — when it is a phone call, or a conversation
at pickup, or a note to someone else entirely. Producing a good letter that
should never have been sent is the failure this skill is most capable of.