Communication

Daily Announcements

• Clear, concise written or verbal communication is essential to our success. All staff members are expected to listen to the WTGR morning announcements each day and use the school's monthly calendars which will be posted. 

Internal Communications

• Memos -- when communicating information to an administrator, please do so in writing, including the date and time of the person submitting the memo. 

• CMS Email/Intranet -- this is an Internal Communication System which allows Charlotte-Mecklenburg School departments and schools to communicate with each other for business purposes and to distribute CMS information. Any email sent to all staff must be sent to the secretary for distribution. Keep email boxes clean and ready for new email. We will communicate by email when necessary. It is an expectation that ALL staff check their email daily. You need to read and be familiar with the CMS Communications e-mail sent to all CMS staff: 

  • For more specific examples of e-mail guidelines, click here  

    • [You must be logged into your CMS Intranet site for this link to work]

• CMS Board Policy EGA-R, click here

• Intercom Use -- intercom use is for school business only. No casual, inappropriate, or unprofessional comments will be allowed when using the PA system. 

• GroupMe -- The Metro School Staff “GroupMe” will serve as an internal communication platform.  Staff who join will receive important school announcements and notifications. This is not a “massive text chat”. Staff members are not allowed to use the Metro School Staff GroupMe to chat. However, staff can create their own team chats and use as they wish. Staff utilizing the Metro GroupMe as a chat tool will be asked to refrain from doing so.  

  • Use this link to join: https://groupme.com/join_group/85535034/df98NiL6 

Parent Contacts

All classroom teachers are REQUIRED to send home weekly notes each Friday via Parent Square. 

The purpose of this note is to promote positive home/school communications. This note should be professionally written with information relating to the instruction covered during the week and any special upcoming events. Special attention must be paid to accurate grammar, punctuation and spelling, as this note reflects the teacher's attention to detail.

• ParentSquare: Districtwide emails/VM/texts 

• ParentSquare: Schoolwide or grade-level emails/VM/texts

• Training tools and info: https://www.parentsquare.com/launch/ 

*All parent contacts made regarding a student’s IEP should also be documented in ECATS

A parent contact involvement log is also a tool to use.  It should be kept throughout the school year as evidence of your communication and parents' participation in school-sponsored activities. Logs will be collected periodically for review. Maintain your Parent Contact log and be prepared to turn the log in to your administrator, when requested.

Parent Conferences

• A parent conference must be held within the first quarter of the school year.  Administration will designate a specific date/time.  The administrative team should be notified if a parent cannot attend or does not respond.

• However, conferences can be held anytime a parent or teacher requests. The school will help teachers arrange conferences with parents who have difficulty getting transportation to school. Teachers should make a number of efforts to conference with a parent. 

• The office will communicate with parents not to expect "drop-in" conferences. Instead, conferences should be scheduled before or after school, or during a teacher's planning time. 

*If a parent conference must be held at another time, please do not make arrangements to see a parent during class time unless approved by the administrative team. 

Professionalism

• All communication with the public must be professional and, with the exception of the classroom weekly notes and daily communication with families, cleared and approved by an administrator before being sent. Check the spelling and grammar of all communications sent home to parents. Let's be sure all written communication looks professional. 

• Remember ... using a CMS email account means that those communications automatically become a public record which is why you see this at the end of every email sent or received within CMS: 

• Email correspondence to and from this address is subject to public records requests pursuant to the North Carolina Public Records Law, resulting in monitoring and potential disclosure of this message to third parties. 

• According to the North Carolina Public Records Laws, the majority of content contained within email exchanges using CMS email addresses are public record. Any member of the media and public could request your email at any time. As a reminder, use of your CMS email address is a privilege and should be used for district business only.

Email Signature

In an effort to remain consistent in our correspondence across all forms of communication throughout the district, all employees must format their email signature per Email Guidelines as found in the CMS Brand + Identity Guidelines. This publication can be found on the Intranet, under Communication Resources.

• CMS emails should NOT include inspirational quotes, religious

• CMS email signatures must be in black font.

• CMS email signatures must use Avenir Book, 11 pt. font size. If Avenir is unavailable, use Arial.

• CMS email signatures should NOT be italicized.

CANVAS:  Professional Development

*CANVAS -- CMS and the State of North Carolina have adopted Canvas a learning management system.  The Canvas LMS provides a way to simplify teaching and learning by connecting all the digital tools teachers and students use in one easy place. It dramatically increases student-/teacher communication and personalizes the classroom in a way that is impossible using traditional means. Students and teachers log into Canvas at Canvas Login Options using their NCEdCloud account.