A Question for Parents -- Communication?

In the last couple of weeks, I've modified my approach to my weekly parent memo. Instead of filling in the number of missing assignments for each child (on a hard copy of the report that many parents never seem to see anyway), I've started simply listing those students who have missing work -- by name. My intent, on a week to week basis, is to keep parents informed about the work that is going on in my classes, and to make it easy for all of you to monitor the level of your student's performance. I think it is important for parents to know when work is turned in, graded, and returned to their student. Unfortunately, 6th graders are capable of making that simple bit of communication very difficult if they decide to do that. Listing students names is a simple, direct way of giving parents a "heads up" that there may be an issue. To tell the truth, I sort of feel that students who don't turn in assignments should know that we KNOW they are missing the mark. At least that is how I see it, but today, I got an email from one mother suggesting that I am hurting people's feelings and creating an issue. Since she is the only one to contact me about this, I am unsure whether this is a widespread perception that almost no one is talking to me about, or really just something that one parent is worried about. I need your help on this one... I am not interested in embarrasing anyone or causing an uproar. I really need to know -- Does seeing your child's name on a list of students who have work missing cause you great distress? Am I shining light on something that people would rather not have be seen? Is this something I need to rethink? Have I taken one problem and created another, worse one in the process of trying to fix it? I suppose the prudent thing to do is to suspend this practice until I know how parents would like me to proceed... Thanks for your consideration of all of this, Sue

Parent Communications

The purpose of the weekly homework packet and attached "parent memo" is to provide parents with regular information about the progress and performance of the students in my classes. This week, 24 out of 42 sixth grade students failed to return the signed parent memo from the homework packet. Certainly, this is a concern from the standpoint that students lose "participation points" when this simple communication loop is not closed. However, the much larger issue is that I fear many parents are not keeping up with the kinds of work their students are turning in. The potential for serious academic problems to arise without at least some "oversight" is fairly significant. Please help me to keep your students on track by checking for those weekly homework packets. Thanks!