Busy? Here's the TL;DR

  1. One way principals boost engagement is via rewards
  2. They tap into emotional rewards by posting pictures 
  3. They encourage healthy competition amongst parents
  4. And they offer up prizes parents can claim for their kids

Want to get everyone communicating consistently?

We asked educators to share a school newsletter engagement hack with us.

Turns out almost a quarter of them use rewards! The rewards themselves fall into 3 categories: emotional, competitive, & tangible.

Let’s walk through each 👇🏽.

1. Emotional - a picture is worth, well, you know!


What parent doesn’t enjoy finding a picture of their own child in a school newsletter?! It just gives it that much more meaning and importance. Educators know that, too, and use it to their advantage. Here are a few different ways they put photos of students to work for them:

screenshot of typed suggestions from principals for how to use photos in newsletters

That last one is interesting, right? It serves a dual purpose 🤓.

2. Competition has its rewards.


Sometimes a competitive incentive is the best — it depends on the vibe of your community. If this is a direction you could go in, there are lots of ways to have fun with it. Here’s a principal whose parents get a competitive advantage from simply reading the updates:

And here’s one who gets parents competing to score points with the principal:

And a third who gets an entire positive community competition going! 🙌 🙌

3. Lastly, actual 🏆 for reading school updates!


A small cohort of educators give out a variety of school-related prizes for children whose parents read their updates. Some would argue that prizes for reading are counter-productive, but these are thoughtful, school-based rewards! Here are some suggestions from folks in the field:

typed suggestions from principals about rewards for students whose parents read weekly updates

So, if you’re looking for ways to get more parents to read your updates, try one of these 🥕🥕. And let us know how it goes!

Here’s a template to help you get started.

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