How to Plan the Perfect Meet the Teacher Night: An Easy Back to School Open House!

Meet the Teacher Night, also known as Back to School Night or Open House, is often your first opportunity to connect with new students and families at the beginning of the school year. Make the evening memorable for students, informative for parents, and stress-free for you with these handy planning tips plus tools for setting up fun Meet the Teacher Night Stations families love!

Setting the Tone for Your Meet the Teacher Night

Meet the Teacher night is typically when you make your first impression with parents and students. Will they walk away feeling like you are warm and inviting? No-nonsense and efficient? Scattered but enthusiastic? It’s helpful to think about how you’d like to be perceived and be intentional with your decisions.

• How do you want parents/families to feel when they walk in the room?
• What is the first impression you’d like to make?
• What would you like them to be thinking when they walk out of your room?

When Meet the Teacher Night Goes Wrong

Take a moment to consider what outcomes you’d like to AVOID. For me, I never want parents to leave feeling like they were ignored or overlooked, and I want to make sure families feel like the trip to school was worth their time.

My worst-case scenarios include:

• Chaos: Parents walking in and feeling unsure about where to go or what to do, or generally feeling like things are unorganized.
• Missed Connection: Not having the chance to make a personal connection with each parent/family that shows up.
• Lack of Value: Not providing enough useful information.
• Info-dumping: Sharing so much information that parents feel overwhelmed.

Having awareness of what I want to avoid helps me plan a great experience for my students and their families.

Considerations for Meet the Teacher Night

Meet the Teacher Night will look different based on your school’s expectations, but there are important considerations for any teacher.

• Goals: What do you most hope to accomplish at Meet the Teacher Night?
• Agenda: What is the essential information you hope to share? Does it need to be shared in a presentation or can you provide a packet or pamphlet for parents to take with them? (curriculum, behavior expectations, grading, school procedures, transportation, arrival and dismissal procedures, parent support, important dates, etc.)
• Schedule/Timing: Will parents be coming and going during the time, or will there be a set presentation time? What will work best for most of the parents/families attending?
• Classroom Set-up: How does the space work for the crowd you’re expecting? Do you need additional seating? If you’re setting up stations, how will people move through the room?

My Goals for Meet the Teacher Night

I prefer to keep things simple at Meet the Teacher Night for a variety of reasons. First, many parents arrive after a long day at work, sometimes before they’ve had dinner, and often with younger children in tow or other classes to visit. Because of this, I prefer for parents to stop by during a window of time rather than having a set time with a presentation.

I provide information in written form rather than shared aloud, so that parents can take it with them and refer to it without so many distractions around. I also save more extensive details for letters or emails later in the year.

My 5 goals for Meet the Teacher Night:

1. Connect and Welcome: Make a personal connection with each student/family so students feel safe and excited for school.
2. Current Contact Info: Ensure that I have current contact information for each student/parent
3. Transportation: Know how each child will be going home on the first day of school and after
4. Share Essentials: Give parents information about arrival and dismissal, first day of school, or other timely matters.
5. Answer Questions: Provide parents with the opportunity to share concerns or ask questions

Why I LOVE Meet the Teacher Night Stations

I started using Meet the Teacher Night Stations years ago and never went back! It’s so much easier to prep and more engaging for families, plus I’m freed up to chat with parents and answer questions.

• Flexibility: With Meet the Teacher Night Stations, I don’t have to worry about having everyone in the room all at once or providing a presentation at a certain time. Parents can come and go as they please, making it easy for busy families or families with kids in multiple grades.
• Easy Prep: I just pick the stations I want to use each school year and post them up around the room with whatever activity goes with that station. I can have everything ready to go in a snap.
• Teacher Can Mingle Freely: The stations make it easy for me to find a time to speak with every parent that comes in the room, rather than providing a whole group presentation where you don’t always get to connect with each family.
• Organized and Engaging: My families always love the stations. They know exactly what to do and where to go when they come into the room because there is a clear path and simple directions.

My Favorite Meet the Teacher Night Stations

I like to choose stations for Meet the Teacher Night that are a good mix of fun and practical so that students feel welcomed and both myself and parents get the necessary information.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• Supply Sorting: I like to make the first stop a “supply sorting” station where students can unpack any supplies they’ve brought and sort them into bins holding glue sticks, pencils, wipes, baggies, or any other consumables that they won’t keep at their desk. This makes less work for me on the first day of school!
• Family Photo: This has been a hit and is so helpful for me as the teacher! I set out a few props and maybe a little sign to hold up that says the school year and grade-level so that parents can take fun picture with their child. (I set up an iPad and add a note about how to use the camera timer.) I can share these photos with families later, and it also gives me a great reference so that I can match parent faces with students.
• Essential Information: Even though I’m often given parent information from the school, there are so many times that the info is already outdated, and I end up not having a current phone number or email. I like having a few computers set up with a ready-to-go Google Form where parents can easily type in their preferred communication preferences and a few other helpful tidbits.
• Transportation: There is nothing worse than getting to the end of the first day of school and finding out that students aren’t sure how they’re going home that day. I like to have one station where students add their name to a bar graph sharing how they’ll be going home on the first day of school and then on the days after.

Sharing Information on Meet the Teacher Night

In the past, I’ve shared information by providing a packet, presenting a slideshow, and sometimes doing both. But I found parents were often distracted while I went over the information since many had younger children with them and I was often giving too much information at once.

Now, I create a simple Classroom Brochure that lists all my essentials in one handy place. I provide this for parents at Meet the Teacher Night, and can send it home to any families that can’t attend.

I’ve created a ready-to-go template that can be updated in minutes in this Classroom Brochure Template.

Meet the Teacher Night gives you the opportunity to start the year off in way that connects you to parents and students while also helping you launch an organized and seamless school year. With just a little bit of planning, you can have a fun and memorable back to school event that eases stress and sets the tone for your classroom.