Parent Communication and Connections
For parent communication, I let my cooperating teacher handle that. Each week a newsletter is sent out to all band students, parents, and families to keep them in the loop. For each week's newsletter, they have done a "staff spotlight" to feature a member of the marching band staff.
I have gotten to make connections with some of the parents that help out with our band events. Quite a few of our band parents help out with a lot of the behind the scenes details of marching band, which we are so grateful for. For example, the parents took care of doing uniform fittings/alterations, making snack bags for the students on competition days, and they help chaperone on buses to and from competitions.
One connection that I got to make a few weeks ago was during our "Family and Friends" day, where we rehearsed and students got to bring a family member or friend out to the field to teach them how to march. I had a mom come up to me and ask if I could march with her son, as she was already helping out his older sister and they didn't have anybody else. It was fun to help them out and now I have a great connection with this marching band member's mom.
All of the parents have been very supportive of me helping out with the program, which is awesome and I am very sad that it's my last week here.
Those connections sound amazing! Marching band is such a fun and different experience with parents and seeing it from a teaching stand point sounds amazing to be able to work with those band parents.
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