Back-to-School Resources for Parents

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The following lists of articles are taken from the Edutopia website. 

Back-to-School Advice and Checklists

  • Best Back-to-School Tips (Greater Good Science Center, 2012)In this podcast, Rona Renner, R.N. and Christine Carter, Ph.D. offer advice about how to best prepare children to head back to school through the deliberate development of morning routines. You may also want to read Carter’s post, Getting Back in the School Year Routine.
  • Back-to-School Tips (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2014)These health and safety tips address issues of backpack safety, transportation, bullying prevention, nutrition, before- and after-school childcare, study habits, and more. For additional health considerations, you may want to review the Back-to-School Family Checklist provided by the National Association of School Nurses.
  • Essential Back-to-School List for Parents: The One the School Doesn’t Give You (Washington State Family and Community Engagement Trust)This list of ten essential strategies addresses necessary back-to-school preparation not found in the usual back-to-school supplies lists.
  • 19 Meaningful Questions You Should Ask Your Child’s Teacher by Terry Heick (Edutopia, 2013)Forget about all the vague, superficial information out there. Heick cuts to the chase with 19 meaningful questions parents can ask their children’s teachers at the beginning of the school year.
  • Back to School (GreatSchools)From back-to-school shopping on a budget, to getting organized, to supporting children academically, these back-to-school articles from GreatSchools will help you round out the preparation for fall. Before back-to-school night, you may want to read their article on Back-to-School Night Basics.

Easing the Back-to-School Transition

  • Guiding Our Children Through School Transitions by Dr. Sharon Sevier (Parent Toolkit, 2014)The transitions from elementary to middle school and middle to high school are both exciting and anxiety inducing for students and parents. In this four-part guide, Sevier provides tips for parents to help their students transition into elementary school, middle school, high school, and post-secondary education.
  • Parents: Start with the A by Matt Levinson (Edutopia, 2013)Start the school year with inspiration and enthusiasm by celebrating your child’s strengths and interests.
  • 9 Tips for Parents If Your Child Is Changing Schools by Meryl Ain (HuffingtonPost, 2013)Moving to a new school can be a bewildering experience for students, but parents can ease the transition with planning and preparation, writes Ain.
  • Help Your Child Get Excited for Back to School by Pernille Ripp (2013)Though Ripp discusses the transition back into school after the winter holidays, her parent tips can just as easily be applied to fall.
  • Nervous? How We Can Help Kids Transition Back to School (Greater Good Science Center, 2011)Rona Renner, R.N. and Christine Carter, Ph.D. discuss ways to help ease kids’ nerves about starting a new school year.
  • Back-to-School Transitions: Resources for Parents by Ted Feinberg, Ed.D., NCSP, and Katherine C. Cowan (National Association of School Psychologists, 2004)This article on transition includes lists of activities that parents can address before the start of school and during the first week of school to help students adjust.

Tech Tips for a New School Year

  • A Parent’s Guide to Twitter and Education by Joe Mazza (Edutopia, 2012)For parents, Twitter offers a variety of hashtags related to parenting and partnering with schools.#PTChat, a weekly parent-teacher chat, is just one of these resources. Principal and Parent-Teacher Chat moderator Mazza explains the benefits of participation for parents and educators alike.
  • Parents’ Top 12 Back-to-School Tech Questions by Caroline Knorr (Common Sense Media, 2013)Explore back-to-school advice and guidance related to some key concerns of parents around managing technology in school and at home. If you’re the parent of a teen, you may also want to check out Common Sense Media’s list of “15 Sites and Apps Kids Are Heading to Beyond Facebook” before your teen heads back to school.
  • Creating a Family Media Agreement: How to Have the Conversation by Matt Levinson (Edutopia, 2013)Principal and author Levinson offers a framework for creating a family agreement on media use, a practice that might be helpful as you consider balancing media use and time on schoolwork during the first weeks of school.

For more tips and guidance about managing media and technology use, check out these other posts from Edutopia:

Gearing Up for Fall Learning

  • Homework and Developing Responsibility (American Academy of Pediatrics, Updated 2015)Developing study habits early is crucial for long-term academic success. In this article, you’ll find tips and ideas for encouraging and helping kids get started in reading, math, and writing.
  • Five-Minute Film Festival: Nine Boosts for Summer Learning by Amy Erin Borovoy (Edutopia, 2013)VideoAmy shares a playlist of videos with fun ideas to re-engage kids in their learning process during the last days of summer.
  • School Success Prep: Growth Mindset Praise (Greater Good Science Center, 2011)In this podcast, part of a larger back-to-school series, Rona Renner, R.N., and Christine Carter, Ph.D. discuss how to talk to kids about schoolwork.
  • How to Prepare Your Child With Special Needs for the Back-to-School Transition (Empowering Parents)The transition back to school is particularly difficult for students with learning disabilities. Author Anna Stewart, though, provides some useful tips and strategies for helping these students transition from summer to school. Also from Empowering Parents: 9 Back-to-School Behavior Tips: How to Set Up a Structure That Works, which features practical tips for setting your children up for success.
  • What Do Parents Need to Know About the Common Core? by Anne O’Brien (Edutopia, 2014)Wondering how you can get involved to increase awareness and build capacity to support learning under the Common Core in a new school year? O’Brien provides parents with a variety of resources.
  • Homework Guide by Peg Dawson, Ed.D., NCSP (National Association of School Psychologists)With a new school year comes the return of homework. Dawson discusses the mixed research on homework’s effects, reasonable homework expectations, and strategies that parents can use to reduce homework hassles.

For more parent strategies around homework, take a look at these blogs from Edutopia:

The Power of Parental Involvement

  • Parent Partnership in Education: Resource Roundup (Edutopia, 2014)Discover tips, tools, and strategies to help parents engage in a productive way with teachers and schools in this list of articles, videos, and other resources.
  • The Power of Parental Involvement by Wesley Sharpe (PARENTGUIDE News, 2014)Research has shown that parental participation is a key to academic success. Sharpe provides tips, facts, and learning resources that can help parents get involved and set their children up for success.
  • Parental Involvement in Schools (Child Trends DataBank, 2013)This report on parental involvement in schools underscores the positive effects of parental involvement in education. A downloadable version is also available. For more on the research about what types of parental involvement work best, you may also want to read Back to School: How Parent Involvement Affects Student Achievement from the Center for Public Education.
  • Beyond Back-to-School Night: Parents and Teachers as Allies by Mark Phillips (Edutopia, 2012)Phillips proposes strengthening the alliance between parents and teachers and offers tips to parents on how to build closer, more supportive relationships with teachers.
  • Parent Involvement Checklist by Project Appleseed (Reading Rockets, 2008)Project Appleseed developed this handy checklist to help educators and parents evaluate how well their school is reaching out to parents and explore how to work together to improve the quality of parent-school partnerships.

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