At the beginning of the semester, send home a brief letter to introduce your-self inform parents of classroom expectations, including necessary mate-rials, classroom rules, amount of homework, and so on. Along with the letter, include a copy of the course syllabus so they can see exactly what their child will be learning in your class. Make sure to extend an invitation to families to contact you with any questions or concerns they may have. Once you have established a positive level of communication, you’ll be amazed at how much easier it will be to contact parents for their support when the going gets rough. If you are working within a team of teachers, you may want to consider co-creating the introductory letter.