Bloomz is a tool that can help build and maintain parent-teacher connectedness, this includes parent involvement and teacher-parent communication both extremely important to both student success and school success. If you currently use the app you are well aware that it is a great asset. Whether parent or teacher you’re more than likely very thankful to have it. If you’re a parent, imagine having those notifications and announcements for ALL of your kids’ classes. If you’re a teacher imagine how transitioning student information to the next grade level could be almost seamless.

Parents receiving notifications and announcements school wide quickly allows for greater communication school wide. This obviously is a win-win as classrooms throughout the school potentially could have a high increase in parent-involvement and thus student achievement. Imagine all teachers actively communicating with parents regularly and easily-building a school wide culture of a sense of connection and community. Even knowing about early dismissals is sometimes an important part of communication.

The RFP process that your school may have to go through can be skipped. This post explains how and can be shared with your principal for more info. This video too. Basically the red tape can be shortened and money can be saved.

School wide use of the app provides more consistency and isn’t that a word heard over and over? The why seems a no brainer, especially if you already use it or if you are familiar with the importance of parent-teacher communication and immediate feedback in correlation with student achievement and academic success.

If you're thinking of talking to your principal or administration about using Bloomz, keep it simple and begin with why communication and connectedness is important.

Parent-teacher connectedness Importance

Children’s academic success can be improved through parent-teacher or home-school connectedness as well as parents’ efficacy, even teachers’ well-being can be positively affected.

Principals looking to improve or build a strong home-school connection would benefit knowing Bloomz can effectively aid in this and at a high level of effectiveness.

Key factors that contribute to strong parent-teacher connectedness: (all of which Bloomz facilitates and supports)

• Communication Content - purposeful content such as behavior or academics, use of teacher commentary with photos, portfolios and behavior information shared
• Communication Frequency - constant and ongoing exchanges in any form pictures, behavior updates, portfolios, messages or updates
• Collaboration opportunities
• Respect and Trust-quality relationships:
  
  • feelings of support
  • mutual respect,
  • parent involvement
  • facilitating meaningful exchanges

The question may be why would you not talk to your principal about Bloomz. An app that supports and builds parent-teacher connectedness used school-wide only further benefits you and your students.

Resources

• Bryce, Crystal I., Bradley, Robert H., Swanson, Jodi and Thompson, Marilyn S. (2018). Parents’ and teachers’ academic influences, behavioral engagement, and first and fifth-grade achievement. American Psychological Association School Psychology, 34(5), 492-502.
• Chia, Luc, Lin, Shin. (2019). Fostering teacher-parent communication: Line plays a significant role in Taiwan. Sage Journals, July-Sept, 1-14. Dio:10.1177/2158244019862667
• Houri, Alaa K., Thayer, Andrew J., and Cook, Clayton R. (2019). Targeting parent trust to enhance engagement in school-home communication system: a double-blind experiment of a parental wise feedback intervention. American Psychological Association, School Psychology, 34(4), 421-432.
• Kuusimäki, Anne-Mari, Uusitalo-Malmivaara, Lotta and Tirri, Kirsi. (2019). The role of digital school-home communication in teacher well-being. Frontiers in Psychology, 10(Nov.), 1-8. dio:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02257.
• Ochoa, Horacio (2021). Skip the RFP and get your whole school of Bloomz. Bloomz blog, 2(April).
• Zhang, Chun, Du, Jianxia, Sun, Li, Ding, Yi. (2018). Extending face-to-face interactions: understanding and developing an online teacher and family community. Early Childhood Education Journal, 43, 331-341. Dio:10.1007/s10643-017-0864-8
• Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash