Building strong relationships between parents and teachers is critical to supporting young children in developing key social, emotional, and pre-academic skills. Especially in preschool, parent-teacher relationships can support a young child’s development across home and school. Communication is an important aspect of successful parent-teacher relationships; however parents and teachers face interpersonal, intrapersonal, and structural barriers to communicating with one another. This study aims to elevate the voices of racial and ethnic minoritized parents of a preschooler and preschool teachers to understand barriers to communicating and strategies to overcome these barriers. Using a qualitative approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 9 parents of a preschool child and 7 preschool teachers at two local early childhood centers. Using a codebook, I am currently analyzing all interviews to answer the following research questions: 1) What type of communication do parents and teachers want? 2) What barriers do parents and teachers face when communicating? and 3) What are some strategies for improving communication between parents and teachers? Preliminary results indicate that both parents and teachers desire open, honest communication. Parents expressed wanting daily communication related to how their child was doing in school. Teachers expressed a desire for parents to understand more about their kids and to be able to speak to parents when they have a concern about their child’s behavior. Despite a desire for communication, both parents and teachers describe feeling unsatisfied by their current level of communication, citing how COVID-19 has limited their ability to communicate. Some strategies discussed included increasing face-to-face contact, having more events at school, and creative ways for daily communication (e.g., interactive platform, daily notes, etc.). Through listening to parents and preschool teachers about their current experiences, we hope to identify ways to improve communication between parents and teachers, ultimately improving young children’s outcomes.

Parent-teacher relationships are important in supporting young children’s social and emotional development. Especially in preschool, strong parent-teacher relationships can support a preschooler’s development across home and school. Despite the importance of parent-teacher relationships, parents from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds report having lower-quality relationships with their child’s preschool teacher. In this qualitative study, we sought to evaluate the voices of parents from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds, to understand barriers to and strategies for creating strong parent-teacher relationships. As part of a community-based partnership, we partnered with local preschools that serve a majority of underrepresented students. I assisted in conducting interviews with nine parents, in which three identified as Asian, one identified as Black/African American, three identified as white, and two identified as more than one race. During the interviews we asked parents questions about barriers at the individual, center, and systematic level that stand in the way of establishing close relationships with their child’s teacher, as well as potential solutions. My team is currently in the process of coding and analyzing all transcripts to explore barriers and solutions in more detail. Preliminary results reveal that parents brought up several barriers including time, limited face to face interaction, lack of communication, and feeling unwelcome in their child’s school. These barriers were described as impediments to the parent’s ability to form relationships with their child’s preschool teachers. We are currently analyzing and working with our community partners to identify solutions to improving parent-teacher relationships. The findings of this study are important in understanding how to support parents from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds in forming and maintaining strong relationships with their child’s preschool teacher.