Family & Community Engagement Plan
Piedmont Elementary 2023-2024
The Piedmont Elementary School faculty and staff recognizes that the involvement of our families and community partners is an integral part of our school's success. PES will use the following strategies to communicate with and to involve parents and community partners in our school's vision and mission.
Piedmont Elementary seeks high quality, effective communication with parents through the following avenues:
- Parent/School/Student Compacts are utilized at Piedmont Elementary to outline responsibilities for each party in the process of achieving student success.
- Our Blackboard phone system is utilized to leave a message on one parent or guardian(s) phone per student. PES will communicate weekly with parents through this system.
- We utilize our website found at https://pes.jc-tn.net/. This site contains all faculty email addresses for easy access. It also contains articles highlighting school activities and student work.
- Administration requires teachers to communicate monthly events and informative flyers with parents.
- Teachers send home weekly classroom newsletters.
- Parent-Teacher Conferences are held in the fall and spring semesters.
- Student handbooks are created by administration/staff/parent committees and are accessible to every student at enrollment. The student handbook outlines rules, procedures, and communication information.
- Parents are encouraged to send a note, email, call, or remind messages when a concern arises.
- A marque in the front of the school is used to remind families of important upcoming events.
- Home visits are conducted through collaboration with our Family Resource Center. Our pre-k teachers conduct two home visits a year per student as a pre-k initiative.
- Our PTO board maintains a website and a Facebook page.
- Our school has a Facebook page that is consistently updated with school happenings. Information is communicated there along with positive things that are going on in our school.
- Families are given timely reports on progress with report cards every 9 weeks and mid-terms between each 9-week reporting period.
- Aspen is updated weekly for students in grade 3-5.
Piedmont Elementary will establish multiple avenues to involve stakeholders at school:
- Piedmont Elementary holds an Open House at the beginning of the year for students and parents to meet and greet faculty.
- A Parent Information Meeting is held annually at Open House.
- Piedmont Elementary trains volunteers on discipline and FERPA along with health and safety measures.
- For the Read Across America Week Piedmont will engage in a multitude of activities to celebrate and support reading to our students. A committee at Piedmont will determine the number of activities appropriate for this celebration.
- Piedmont Elementary School will also participate in College Week and Red Ribbon Week. A committee at the school level has been formed and activities will be planned through this committee.
- In the spring, parents and families are invited to a designated time for grade-level field day.
- The school library sponsors a Book Fair each semester. The Book Fair is open one evening for Family Night.
- Piedmont Elementary’s Leadership Team will be planning and providing parent nights throughout the year.
At Piedmont Elementary, families and school staff will continuously work together to support student learning both at home and school.
- Administration and teachers meet with parents and guardians to discuss student academic and behavior concerns.
- Teachers and parents use communication folders between home and school depending upon the grade level of the student.
- Parents who have children in grades 3-5 can check their child’s grades at any point throughout the year. You can log into your child’s account by going to Jefferson County Schools webpage. On the home screen choose Aspen, enter your child’s name (ex. jane.doe) and your child’s lunch number (ex. 000000).
- Teachers send home books for students to read at home in Kindergarten.
- Teachers utilize communication apps (Remind and/or Reach) to easily pass along information to families.
- The school website highlights classroom activities and celebrations.
- Benchmark Advance, Gallopade, Spelling City, Zearn, Edulastic, IReady, and Brain Pop are all subscribed programming available to students at home through the internet.
