Parent Letters [Open Beta]

Contents

• What Parent Letters are
• What is in the open beta
• Get the letters
• Fill in the Welcome Letter
• Fill in the Progress Report
• Send us feedback
• Things to know
  
  

What Parent Letters are

Parent Letters are editable documents you send home to the families of your English Learners, in English and in Spanish. Off2Class writes the wording. You add your school's details, your own notes and your letterhead.

Both letters assume the family has never heard of Off2Class and may not read English fluently. The sentences are short. There is no product vocabulary, no framework score and nothing a parent would have to look up. You send a family an update on their child's English without writing one from scratch and without having to explain a platform they have never encountered.

The letters are documents. They sit outside the product, so nothing you write in them reaches your Off2Class account and nothing from your account fills them in.

What is in the open beta

Two letters, each in English and Spanish. Other languages are available on request.

Each one comes as a Word document and a PDF. Fill in the Word document. The PDF is there for printing, for attaching to a message as it is, or for a school that would rather not hand teachers an editable file.

The Parent Welcome Letter is a one-page introduction you send at the start of the year, or when a student joins your ELD section. It covers what Off2Class is, what the student will be doing in class, how student data is handled and four things a parent can do at home. It closes with a contact line for the teacher.

The Parent Progress Report is a one-page update you send per student, per reporting period. It has space for the student's details, their current level in plain words, a snapshot across reading, writing, listening and speaking, work completed, strengths, goals for the next period and a personal note.

The Spanish versions are full translations, not summaries. They carry the same sections in the same order, so a school sending both to a mixed-language community is sending the same letter twice rather than two different letters. The bracketed fields stay in English in the Spanish documents, which means you can complete them without reading Spanish.

Get the letters

1. Go to the Parent Letters request form.
2. Complete the form.
3. Download the letters. Each one comes as a Word document and a PDF.

Result: you have the letters saved alongside your other family communications, ready to fill in.

Ask for another language

If your families need a language we do not have yet, email matthew@off2class.com and tell us which one. We will make it.

We reply within two working days, and the reply tells you when that version will be ready. Every translation is done by a person. We do not use machine translation for a document that goes home to a family.

Fill in the Welcome Letter

1. Open the Word version in the language the family reads.
2. Add your school or district letterhead and the date.
3. Replace the school name wherever it appears.
4. Enter your name, title and contact details in the closing block.
5. Optional: remove any of the at-home suggestions that do not fit your families.

Result: a one-page letter ready to send. Nothing in it names an individual student, so one copy serves a whole class in that language.

Fill in the Progress Report

1. Open the Word version in the language the family reads.
2. Complete the student details at the top: student, teacher, class, reporting period and date.
3. Enter the student's current level, then write one or two sentences saying what that means for the child.
4. Check one box per skill in the snapshot: Getting started, Making progress or Doing well. In the Spanish version these read Está comenzando, Está progresando and Lo hace bien.
5. Fill in work completed, what is going well and what you are working on next.
6. Optional: add a short personal note under the teacher's comments.

Result: a one-page update for one student, covering the reporting period.

Note: the skills snapshot uses three plain bands rather than Off2Class levels or a WIDA or CEFR label. The bands are written for a parent reading at home with no framework in front of them. Keep the framework labels for your own reporting and use the plain bands here.

Send us feedback

A short survey goes out to everyone who requested the letters, some time after the request. You can also email matthew@off2class.com at any point.

The most useful things to tell us:

• What you had to rewrite before you send it
• What a family asked you after they received it
• Whether the reading level was right for your families
• What you needed and could not find, including translations

Things to know

• The letters are in open beta. Wording, layout and reading level will change, so download a fresh copy each reporting period rather than reusing an old file.
• Both letters are available in English and Spanish today, and in any other language on request. Ask and we will make it.
• Every translation is written by a person, not by machine translation.
• Each letter comes as a Word document and a PDF. The Word version is the one you fill in.
• Off2Class does not send these. You do, through whatever channel your school already uses for family communications.
• The Welcome Letter links to the Off2Class privacy policy. Check that the link works before you send, since a parent following it is the point of including it.