Ep. 27: Daily Reports Done Right: Special Ed Teacher's Guide to Parent Communication

Unlock the power of daily communication! 🗝️ This episode dives into the essential link between special education teachers and families, exploring how open communication boosts student progress and builds a united team.

✅ We cover traditional and digital tools:

* Daily/weekly logs📝
 * Take-home folders📂
 * Email📧
 * School communication apps📱
 * Online platforms💻

Discover best practices for meaningful, two-way dialogue that respects privacy and celebrates every student's success!

Don't miss our tips on avoiding communication pitfalls and fostering strong partnerships with families! And grab the Daily Reports freebie in the Facebook group!

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Transcript

Caitlin Beltran: I'll have a stack of reward certificates, and then it's more of just like a signature and date, and it goes home, and then it's like a really nice visual for, you know, I can imagine mom and dad pulling it out of the backpack, Oh, today, you hit your goal or something.

Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorists Podcast. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Caitlin Beltran, here to bring you evidence based strategies with a student centered focus. Let's get started. 

Caitlin Beltran: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Misfit Behaviorists. Before we jump in, don't forget to follow us on Instagram and join our Facebook group called the Misfit Behaviorists Podcast. And we're putting all kinds of freebies and things in there each week to go along with each episode. So, Audra, what are we chatting about today?

Audra Jensen: Thought we would talk about as we're kind of approaching the school year, talk about kind of daily reports and communications with families. But before we do that, I want to hear about how ESY is going. 

Caitlin Beltran: It's crazy that we're talking about back to school when I know you'll have a month left of where I am anyway. So it's mid July. So we still have a solid month of ESY. it's going good. I feel like some years are bumpier than others this year it's. Knock wood.. Very smooth. So the kids are happy. The staff is happy. It's a thousand degrees right now in New Jersey, but other than that, so they go outside, like first thing and then run back inside, that's their recess.

And then, you know, we get out a little early, like 1:30. So, yeah, it's going really well. 

Audra Jensen: So that's very cool. I am not doing ESY. Okay, so well, let's get started. I just kind of want to talk about daily reports. We'll be super casual and easy and quick here. But thinking about as we start to think about the upcoming school year that this is kind of really important to think about what are we going to do the same?

Audra Jensen: Are we going to try something else in communicating with our families? Because that communication between the school and home in especially in certain situations is so important and I'm thinking, you know, just the impact also on student progress, watching that as we're, I mean, if we're communicating something to the home environment and they are, aren't doing something at home that would impact kind of their progress overall, I think it's really important.

Plus, you know, it just communicating with families. Building that collaborative team together. So I thought we'd talk about kind of those traditional paper type communication methods that we're all familiar with and maybe some modern ones, especially talk to you about some of the digital ways that you've done it, because 

Caitlin Beltran: yeah, for sure.

Audra Jensen: So I pulled up a video and I'll kind of talk through it, but I did some examples recently. And I thought it'd be easiest to show, kind of, different daily communication logs that I've used that I like. 

So, before I start this, I just want to say especially these daily reports, especially when you get kind of the real visual ones, are really good for our learners who are non speaking or can't communicate how their day went.

So they go home and they're not able to say how their day went. I can tell you from a parent perspective that these communication methods, actually anything you use is just vital, especially in those situations. It's also really good if we are tracking behavior on a, daily consistent basis, because we have that.

I've always had these sent home. Especially if we're tracking behavior, have a copy sent home. And then I keep a copy with us too. So we have that tracking. It's usually, you know, more anecdotal and stuff, but it does give us kind of a snapshot of each day. And over time, I think it's really useful. 

Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, for sure. 

Audra Jensen: Then I also think it's really helpful for parents who share custody. So while the student may go home to one parent. I've had times where I make sure that we're emailing out the daily report to both parents so that they both get to see or that there's some other way that each parent or, you know, there may be more than two parents, who knows, so that everybody within the home environment that needs to know knows how their day is going.

And then they have the opportunity to bring up if they have questions or concerns or need to alert us that anything's going on. We get a lot of these kids off the bus and stuff and they can't communicate how they've done, you know, if they're feeling okay, if they've had breakfast, if they woke up with a tummy ache.

So having something and, you know, I would say maybe 25 percent of the parents will actually write that, but I tell you, even one out of four, if I'm getting a little note from them at home, you know, they had a good breakfast, they didn't sleep well at night, wasn't able to get their medications in them, all that stuff really helps us start the day a certain way, helps us kind of plan what we're doing with the students.

So it kind of works in both ways. I think it's really helpful. 

Caitlin Beltran: I think it's nice too, like you said, if they're not getting this and they want to communicate something to you, I mean, obviously they can start the email chain or pick up the phone, but it's nice when we're sending home something consistent because the line of communication is already open and it might get a parent or two that you might not have normally heard from. Yeah. Just oh yeah, well, since you sent it home, I'm, I might as well tell you like, you know, this happened or they're leaving earlier. Something kind of important. Yeah. That it takes a little bit off their, their plate, you know? 

Audra Jensen: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's a, it's a trigger for them, you know, as we're sending something home, right? It's like, oh yeah, I, I need to let her know that we have a vacation coming up or something. So here's one example.There are lots of these. These are just some examples that I've used. and I'll put some samples of these in for the freebie this week. 

 So this first one that I'll show just an example of is a very visual one and I like these. I like these ones in particular because students can participate as much as they're capable of how their day went and I think this is a good kind of self reflection or a beginning of self reflection skill we want to teach them. So, in this one, you know, you're, you're, and I usually do this with the kids that can. So, they will writing their name and the date, and we're choosing the activities that we put, and we put the activities. There's been a time where, let me pause this for a sec, where, we've had these, and I print these, the, The board maker symbols out on full size, sticker paper or just, you know, and then, so they're actually stickers, which is, and you can get those like an office depot or whatever their full size labels is what they are.

And, or you can. You know, get the ones that are actually labels and then design your pictures to fit. But I like the ones that are stickers, otherwise you can just print whatever pictures you're using and then just use a glue stick. And then you're talking about the things that you did that day. We went to OT, we went to recess, we went to lunch.

And then when the parent gets this back, they can talk about what did you do today? And they're able to talk about, at least the parent knows, you know, for a student who's non speaking, what actually they did. And then the little piece at the end, you know, I'm, I'm doing well. I went to the bathroom. I felt good. And then any other notes. So that's a nice little visual one that I like. 

Caitlin Beltran: So if you're not watching on YouTube and if you're listening, this one's pictures of, what is the first one? How do you feel? And they can circle and then what did you do? And they can sort of glue different like board maker think icons.

Like I had math, I had library. And then also they can check off, like I did okay with this and how, how you ate. So there's both circling, gluing, and also check off. So they could do this really with assistance. Pretty, with moderate assistance even to independently, I would think. 

Audra Jensen: Yeah, yeah. We've used dot markers and stuff like that. And I have the first, the feelings when they come into the day, and then I also have how they're feeling at the end of the day, because that's often different. 

Caitlin Beltran: I like that. 

Audra Jensen: So that's one. The next one is one that I've used for a full week. So each of these columns, or each of these rows, is a different day of the week.

And so rather than just one page going back and forth, the same sheet can go back and forth. So you may be, you know, you're, you're sending a backpack back and forth or you're sending, window folders or something like that back and forth throughout. And then it's just, it's a very quick one. What we did that day and how I felt at the end of the day, same type of thing. So each one is separate, but the whole sheet is one full week. 

Caitlin Beltran: Nice. A little less paper. 

Audra Jensen: A little less paper.Okay, this one is like a daily logbook, and you can use those composition books, as well as anything, any sort of notebook, paper, whatever. And this one, a lot of people over the years, we've just written back and forth with the families, and that's just as well.

I mean, any amount of communication is great. In this case, this is just, again, either a sticker or you glue on, the top and the bottom. What, same type of thing, but this just comes in a little book of what, what we did today and how I was feeling. This goes back and forth. I like this version. The notebook is really easy to cart around and to stick in and out of the backpack.

It's a little bit different than the paper, but I do like that. And then this one is a paper version, but it just on the top, it's from the home front. So they fill in what they were doing at home, and then on the bottom is from the school front. and then you do that. So it's one page throughout a whole day, and you're kind of prompting that family to, communicate again what was happening before at home.

Caitlin Beltran: Very nice. 

Audra Jensen: And here's one I've used when students going into class, a very simple one for them to take out each. you know, if they're going into class in different classes, how each of those, and this is for students who are really more independent and go in and the teacher has a very simple data collection of how their day went while they were in their gen ed classroom. 

Caitlin Beltran: Cool, so this one is like combination of like notes and circling and check off. 

Audra Jensen: And then there's always the behavior focused ones, you know, And there's a variety of these. I'm hesitant to use a lot of these these days. We're a little bit more just focusing on the positive behaviors. But there are some situations where we really do want to track over the course of the day how that behavior is.

This is a simple one that just has a happy face, and a straight face, and a frowny face for each, for multiple points of the day. And I usually am not, unless I'm tracking behavior specifically with a time frame, you know, with a It's specific every 20 minutes or something. This will just be like during reading period, during circle time, you know, during transitions or whatever it is. Just kind of a very general one. 

Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned that because obviously, as humans, we're focused on the positive and we want to celebrate everything that's going well, but, you know, sometimes you have, medication trials or different schedules happening and you have parents and guardians, rightfully so, saying,You know, if you have the good relationship already, and you know, they're not going to be scarred by sending home a note of just more geared toward behaviors like they really need to know the ins and outs of is it happening before or after lunch? Is it related to what they're eating? Is it related to the weather? So it can be really informative for that reason. 

Audra Jensen: Right, right. And I see there are barriers, you know, to the these daily ones or the weekly ones. I find that, you know, it takes time. It's hard to, especially at the end of the day when you're trying to wrap everybody together and everything up, it's hard to do that.

So we kind of work on with staffing, you know, anything that's on there that's throughout the day, fill it out at the time. Plus you're not at the end of the day, trying to think about what it was like at circle time in the morning, you know, in the moment that it happens, then you have much more accurate response.

And then you're also not when everybody on the bus is here and you're getting coats on and grabbing things and everything's complete chaos, which we know it is. You're not having to remember to do that and stick it in there, so. And then we also, like at the end of the day, we always had a kind of wind down period of time where we'd have, you know, a little video on or something where everybody's sort of winding down and we had the staff in the back putting the backpacks together and getting the data and communication, you know, all together so there's not that mad rush at the end of the day, which is crazy.

Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, I think embedding that time, which I'm sure most teachers are already doing for the wind down, is important because that is an important part of the day for you to be able to convey information to the parents. And also, even though you probably have fewer students on the whole, there's a lot 

maybe sometimes a lot more to say you're responsible for saying a lot more than in a general education classroom where those students are speaking for themselves or don't have the same behavior. So, I was going to add one more thing that a barrier could be, I haven't had this, but I've heard, other, I heard one story recently and it wasn't mine thankfully, where they're putting the behavior report in the backpack and then I guess like red light green light or something.

I don't know what system it was exactly. And the child was like taking it out 'cause he knew what it represented. Yes. So mom had that. was like, you know, if she didn't get one, she's must have been a great day. 

Audra Jensen: Yeah, I absolutely have had that. 

Caitlin Beltran: Sadly, took a little too long for them to realize, it was not some great days.

Audra Jensen: Yes. 

Caitlin Beltran: They were just like going by the wayside in the bus. yes, no one can see this. 

Audra Jensen: Yep. So yeah, that's when you start to get creative. So we would take a picture, a phone picture of it, and we would email it. And so he, and plus, you know, It was a few of them, but you know, cases where their impact of the behavior of their own behavior it knowing it was whether it was just making them feel bad or it was just reinforcing the negative behaviors.

It just wasn't good for them to see it at all. And so, yeah, we found ways for them to not have to see it at all, which is great. 

Caitlin Beltran: Right. And again, if I thought that this was going to a family or a household that they were taking that out on the child, like that's, I would never use that system at all if I even remotely thought it was going to be like taken advantage of or used as like a home punishment.

That's never what we're after. So don't, don't come for us. We're just after being transparent. And, you know, conveying the information, because if you do have students engaging in really severe problem behavior, you don't want to wait for that IEP meeting, and you don't have time to call within your contracted hours every day, so.

Audra Jensen: Yeah. And some of the other things I've used that was on there I didn't show, but having little notes that are already pre made,we're out of snack, can you share some snacks, or he needs an extra set of clothes, or, he was fantastic, he got a superstar in this, or whatever. Little notes like that go home, and also help kind of keep our snacks. Or a snack. We don't get, you know, money for snacks. 

Caitlin Beltran: No, unfortunately not. Sometimes with students, if they're on some type of behavior plan, and they earn that day or something, I'll have a stack of reward certificates, and then it's more of just like a signature and date, and it goes home, and then it's like a really nice visual for, you know, I can imagine mom and dad pulling it out of the backpack, Oh, today, you hit your goal or something. So, it's something to celebrate. 

Audra Jensen: Yeah, totally. So then the other thing is, you know, we're moving more into a digital age. So there are lots of digital ways to do this. And there's some great advantages of switching to a digital thing. One of it is right away you're not going to have a student having to see any of this.

This can just go home and that's where the parent accesses it. So this could be emails is very common, just always be mindful of using professional language, email etiquette, and that, be mindful that not every parent checks their email as regularly. So if you're using email or any of these communication methods, make sure that the parent is responsive to this and this is what they like.

In fact, at the beginning of each year, I would send out information to the parents. I, Do you prefer digital? Do you prefer paper? Do you prefer email or calls or texts or, you know, we didn't use texts, but you know, 

Caitlin Beltran: Sometimes I like the app. 

Audra Jensen: Yeah, that's what I call based apps. Exactly. so yeah, you kind of get that information. It's a little tricky if you have multiple parents, who like it different ways, but you figure it out, you know, we're teachers, we can do it. 

Caitlin Beltran: I love using a digital format because, like you said, one, if the students, you know, there's an effect on them seeing it, but also just that, like you mentioned before, if you're sending a paper copy home, you're most likely going to want to make a copy of it, whereas with digital, if I'm filling out like a Google Form or a Google Sheet, the parent can see it, but also it's on my drive forever, so we both have a record of it without kind of doubling the work.

Audra Jensen: Yeah, when you use Google Forms and Google Sheets, you also get pretty graphs. Mm hmm. It's good to do that. 

Caitlin Beltran: You do. And you get nice patterns. I will say one of my teachers and she loves this system, and her parents loves it. She, it's very simple. She just does a google doc and she inserts like a table with you know, each row is a new date.

And then she puts the, current date on top so the parent doesn't have to scroll or anything and we kind of just put a couple headers like lunch, behaviors, specials, what we did exceptionally well and with google docs if you are the viewer or if you're anyone with access you can set The preference so that as soon as someone fills out the Google Doc, you get an email.

So even if, you don't have to email it every time. She just has to, the Google Doc pinned on her desktop and she types in it. And I do it too. So if there's one where she's sending it home to somebody high on my radar, I get an email every time she updates that doc, which is just once a day, but it just reminds me to check it.

Audra Jensen: You know, that's a really good system if you're using, if you have a team, a whole team, like the OT, PT, speech, whatever, and they're willing to do it as well, and they can, you know, maybe the speech only sees him once a week, and so, but she can pull it up and plug in her notes from that day as well. And I'll tell you, parents don't usually get to hear from the OT and the speech and stuff, except for when there's something to talk about. So having that little note every time they see him would be really nice. 

Caitlin Beltran:Yeah, and the other one is, I think we just had Heather on recently talking about the Google Forms and linking them to QR codes. And so if you do have, if you're lucky enough to have paras that are helping you with this, you can put that Google Form, you know, link it to the QR code.

And now all of a sudden they're just taking their phone, you know, if it's allowed and they're scanning the code and then filling out that checkbox on their phone and that two minute window of dismissal. 

Audra Jensen: Yeah, I love that. And then some of the other digital ways is you might. I've used a variety of these.

I've used ClassDojo, I've used Seesaw, very minimally, but I've used Remind, and so there are a lot of these kind of, they're specifically for school communication. And that can kind of streamline your communication, and it can be private and secure, just make sure it is private and secure. Make sure, that you, you know, you're using whatever it is, make sure we're not using names and stuff like that, because that does go out there into, you know, The cosmos, but I loved Remind when I was doing preschool to be able to and they all had permission to do this to share real time photos of what was going on in the classroom. That's so fun. I just love doing that. 

Caitlin Beltran: And I think that's so important for families to see like what it looks like what they're doing. 

Audra Jensen: Yeah. And then there's like the online platforms like, Google Classroom and Canvas and stuff like that. And that can be used also for communication as well as, especially if you get through the older kids sending home work that they weren't able to do in class or they were absent for.

That's really nice to keep that communication of what's going on going. And I think most of the schools these days, unless you're living way out in Timbuktu, are really good about doing that piece of it. They have some system that's digital communication for work, schoolwork and grades and everything else. But being able to have that back and forth is really important. 

Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, I've even seen, and again, this just is important to look up your school's policy and know what, you know, is accepted and prohibited. But, like a private Instagram, or YouTube channel where you get the parents permission not only to consent for their photos or videos to be up, but also like To that, you know, these 12 students or something, and it's private.

So no one else can join, but then you can kind of post like different things and parents can comment to each other. I mean, hopefully it doesn't go off the rails or anything like other online platforms, posters too. But yeah, it's like a cool little community vibe. 

Audra Jensen: They could be influencers. So the last couple of things I was thinking about it kind of be mindful of kind of your cautions always be mindful of who might have access to the communication. So just be You know, there are some situations where you want to be careful. Maybe you don't want to do paper products for a certain reason.

So maybe digital is better, but then also be mindful of the digital community and always ask yourself, would I be comfortable with this being read in a court of law, because there are situations that, so just always, when you write something, you put something down on paper, just always be mindful of emails in particular, because if something happens, it's And you guys are sequestered or not sequestered.

What is it? Um, yeah, they call four dollars subpoenaed anyway, they get all the records, but if they're if you go to any sort of mediation or anything like that, they do request all of that, that information. So just always be mindful what you put on there. And then always encourage that two way dialogue.

Don't wait for that reporting period that you have during report cards to have that conversation with your families. Especially if you start to have concerns. A lot of this stuff that pops up, we can catch it before it gets too big. And they're going to be very grateful if you bring it up early and we start to address something.

And then, I think this is the last warning. I think it's really important to be mindful of those dual relationship concerns so that, you know, you may check with your school district. But I, I, I don't become friends, Facebook friends with, Families that I'm working with, and we have an ethical code with, with the BACB as well, and these aren't things we're allowed to do anyway, but just, you know, even special education teachers, paras and stuff, you don't go to your birth, their birthday parties, it's just, it causes all, and I've seen some problems that comes with people who kind of cross that line, so just be mindful of that.

Caitlin Beltran: 100 percent I echo that and I've seen some major problems as well and it never seems like it's going to be a problem so nobody ever starts that relationship like this won't go well, but, and it could go okay like it's not necessarily going to be a huge problem but The risk versus reward. Oh, it can be really, really bad.

And you really don't want to cross that boundary because at the end of the day, we're not part of the family. We're not anyone's friend. We're their educators. And you know, as soon as we start to come close to that boundary lines get blurred and it's not good. And I'm just going to mention, yes, right. Out of your, you know, your grades.

Audra Jensen: Become friends with the moms that are there. I've met some great moms and stuff that we hang out, but that was later. 

Caitlin Beltran: Absolutely. You don't want to confuse that line. and also if you are emailing or calling or sending something in the app and it has been a rough day, take a minute and just, I could do this all the time with just particular students or particular challenges, like ask your coworker to ask your coworker to look it over and be like, how's the tone? How does it sound? Because, you know, if it was a rough day and you're frustrated and you're just rattling off an email, like, Hopefully, you're, you're reading it over and doing that yourself, but it might just help to get the outsider's eye. 

Audra Jensen: I love that idea. Yes.

Caitlin Beltran: All right, thanks for joining us as we chatted about some different ways to share daily reports with students, parents, guardians. Next week we are going to be talking about building relationships with students as a school based BCBA. I know that for me was pretty hard when I transitioned from teacher to BCBA, so I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts.

And don't forget to join the Facebook group, follow us on Instagram, do all the things, make our algorithm happy, and we'll see you next week. See you next week.

Thanks for listening to the Misfit Behaviorists. And be sure to tune in next week for more tips and tricks. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.