By Katherine M. Guajardo

Students exhibiting extreme behaviors at school are on the rise. Many of these students display the same disruptive behaviors at home, which makes communication and collaboration between school and home imperative. Phone calls and notes from school to home are both helpful in keeping parents and teachers aware of behavioral and other concerns, but sometimes these forms of communication can break down. Phone calls may not be available at a mutually convenient time for both parties, notes can be lost or remain unread, and sometimes parents and teachers have difficulty seeing eye-to-eye when it comes to behavioral concerns. When communication attempts are unsuccessful all parties: teachers, parents, and students, suffer. The focus of this paper is exploring ways to help students with behavioral challenges by improving home-school communication.