Back to School Night Tips From Kim at Stress-Free Teaching

If you're a teacher, you know that one of the longest days of the year is Back to School Night. At some schools it's a once-a-year thing while at others you might have a couple of them. Either way, it means you're likely at school for 12+ hours. 

Obviously, any way you can make such a long day easier is a huge. You've just taught a full school day (which is tiring enough!) but then need to stay at school until 8 or 9 pm. 

My friend Kim has a great blog called "Stress-Free Teaching" where she shares great tips that are mostly focused on elementary. However, I wanted to share with you her blog post on Back to School Night Tips because they're super helpful no matter what grade you teach. 

My favorite of her recommendations is to create a video presentation to share with parents that couldn't make it to Back-to-School Night. Teaching high school, this is a common occurrence. I think most years I average about 5-7 parents out of a class of 25-30 kids. Most parents are too busy and by this point might feel like they have been to enough of these. 

However, I know that most parents still want to know what is going on in my class. The video presentation that Kim describes allows them to see and hear all the  information you presented.

Kim describes how she uses the Screencastify extension in Chrome to record her voice going through her Google Slides presentation before the actual event. This is also a great way to practice what you're going to say! Then, she links the video to the Back-to-School Night presentation to her class website for the parents to view.

So simple and yet so brilliant! Now, parents can access exactly what they need to know about their child's class right there in a short video. You can also include any handouts there as well. 

I'm definitely looking forward to trying this strategy out! Do you have any great Back to School Night survival tips? If so, please share! Also thank you to Kim for her suggestions. Definitely check out her site for more great teaching tips!