Newsletters
for Smarties Carl Sannito
It was the
beginning of the year and I received a note in my mailbox reminding
me that I was part of the dreaded "Newsletter Committee." Ick.
"Not again,"
I mumbled to no one in particular. "I did it last year. Oh well."
Later that
week, I went to the meeting and we all decided what types of information
we wanted to put in our monthly issue.
The idea behind
the newsletter was to take everything that parents needed to know
for that month and give it to them in one central location. The
problem we had was trying to decide what should go in it. Me? I
like to go for the flashy stuff. I want to see events at the school
documented so the parents have some idea of what's going on here.
I love pictures of the sports teams in action or of the children
making presentations in front of their classes. The principal loves
that kind of stuff. However, as she wisely reminded me, we also
need to include the more mundane, yet certainly not less important,
items, such as: dates to remember, introductions of new staff members,
and changes in policies and procedures.
All of that would have been fine IF she would have reminded us about
all this BEFORE we put together a flashy first issue that read more
like People magazine as opposed to the New York Times.
Sigh. Back
to the drawing board.
Of course,
she is right. You need a good mix of both content items to make
a good newsletter for parents. So, because we were back at the drawing
board, we didn't get our September issue out.
If you're looking
for ideas, try some of our previous issues at this link:
http://www.suder.cps.k12.il.us/Suder%20Celebrates.htm
Or, take a look at some of these others for more ideas.
http://www.happyvalley.sa.edu.au/newsletters.htm
http://www.ipsd.org/still/newsletters/newsletter.index.htm
http://www.cssd11.k12.co.us/pike/newsltrs.htm
http://www.stlucaswels.org/school/page.asp?pg=3
http://www.tvdsb.on.ca/AStringer/newslett/newslett.html
Best of luck to you and I hope your newsletters get out earlier
than mine!
Do you have a comment or suggestion? You can e-mail Carl at carlsannito at yahoo dot com. |
