School Shorts
What Happened When This Principal Prioritised School-Parent Communication, with Blair Dravitski
31 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the significance of school-parent communication?
Hi, and welcome to School Shorts with me, Melissa Chan-Green, journalist and mum of two with a passion for education. In this episode, we are talking about the relationship between school and teachers and home, and in particular, the experience of one principal, Blair Drevitsky, to create what he calls a culture of communication.
It has been an important lesson, an important part of Blair's leadership as the leader of Lemonwood Grove School for the past six years, because this is in a suburb of Christchurch that has dealt not only with the Christchurch earthquakes, but they were the closest school to Linwood Mosque in the wake of the mosque attacks in New Zealand, which killed 51 people.
So his leadership there has delivered some sensitive and significant lessons around communication. Blair, thank you so much for your time. I know it is especially precious at the moment, so I really appreciate you being here.
Thanks for the invitation.
Chapter 2: How has trauma influenced communication strategies in schools?
As I said in the introduction, you have led schools through some pretty traumatic experiences and some really significant experiences, not only for New Zealand, but actually with a global lens. People have been looking at Christchurch. So as a school leader, how do you manage that? How did you manage that?
Yeah, I've always been a firm believer that skills are hubs in communities.
Chapter 3: What strategies does Blair Dravitski use to foster communication?
My strategic plans always focused around three stakeholders, key stakeholders, which are the students, the staff and the community. It was strengthened during those times of trauma because the parents in particular look to skills for support and for help. So navigating that is navigating the need and the priority at the time.
For me in particular, our parents in that situation in Christchurch with my On the back of the earthquakes and then the mosque attack, it was all about making sure that they had their kids safe. They wanted to make sure they were safe. Often they weren't 100% sure about the situation.
And so being at the front gate, being torn through car windows to make sure that they were reassured that kids coming to school was a safe place to be.
Chapter 4: How does transparency reduce anxiety in school communities?
And that was challenging. I mean, after the mosque attack, we had armed guards for three weeks. So separating those out with my staff and my school leaders was huge. And yeah, it was an interesting time, but a hugely valuable time to ensure that our communities were the first in priority in our schooling.
We so often talk about with educators that the importance of a student feeling safe at school, that that's kind of the basis by which they can then learn. And that's just really a sense of regulation about what's happening around them. But I mean, these are really extreme circumstances. And you're not only dealing with students who might be feeling unsafe and anxious, but
Parents, as you say, so they're potentially getting those kinds of anxieties at home. Was there any lesson that you took from that into, okay, how do you keep kids safe?
Chapter 5: What challenges arise from rapid school growth?
Because this is a very extreme example of it. How did you learn how to react to that?
Yeah, I find that uncertainty creates anxiety. So being really transparent with our communication to parents, to the staff, to the students. For myself, during any of these situations, your own school context is hugely important. Although we're not a huge country, there's lots of different schools with lots of different contexts.
And so when you're applying, I guess, these lessons or what we've learned over the years, it's important to look internally first. So what's important to you? How do you reassure the parents? How do you reassure the kids?
Chapter 6: How does diversity impact school communication?
How do you make sure the staff are on board? No matter how big or small the school is, having staff, collective buy-in, building relational trust is so important to ensure that when these things do happen, which we hope never do,
that you've got the building blocks in place and that trust built up over time to make sure that actually they do turn to schools because we are a hub and we are a place that can provide some of those pastoral needs that although we're not necessarily expected to or maybe not in the job description, it's something that through a vocation of teaching is something that I think all educators are well aware of in regards to that part of the job.
I was just walking through school with my son the other day, he's just in year two, and I thought it's a school community that I thought, I'm going to be with these people probably for the next, I don't know, well, what would it be, 11 years of my life. And then I've got my daughter coming through as well, so... that relationship between the school, the community, parents, teachers is so key.
And you talk about it being kind of led by the heart or really kind of people focused. What do you mean by that?
Yeah, so you often hear schools talking about the only time they hear from parents is when there's an issue. And then in reverse, parents talk about the only time they hear from schools is when there's an issue at school.
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Chapter 7: What role do parents play in supporting educational changes?
So for myself and the school, it's about creating relationships you know, explicitly. So you are sending emails home with positive comments about interactions during the day. If something hasn't happened, sorry, if something's not gone well, then we're also reaching out to parents so they're not getting their child to arrive home and sharing a story or one of worry.
So we're actually front-footing things and front-loading our parents so that we actually have those strong communication places already set up. It does mean that from a communication point of view,
They feel that when the school reaches out, there's a reason for it, and it's both positive and sometimes feedback-driven, and then other times they'll reach out to us and have the same respectful, healthy conversations that we want. I don't tend to prioritise things like difficult conversations.
I hate the term difficult conversations because it creates an adjective and puts anxiety on a conversation that actually should be just part and parcel of the school culture, and how you have those conversations with parents are respectful, and then you get the same back.
So do you try and create numerous opportunities where you're just going to be kind of happening upon a parent so that you've got those little moments for interacting along the way?
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Chapter 8: How can parents effectively communicate with teachers and school leaders?
Yeah, absolutely. So when the bell goes at my school at the end of the day, all my staff are outside making sure that those parents who are on site are able to have a conversation couple of minute conversation if required. For some parents in some of the schools I've worked at, they may not choose to interact with the staff.
So the fact that parents are on site, it's up to my staff to bridge that gap and go the last 10% and say hello or identify whose parent they are in regards to the child that they're there to pick up. It's all about just taking those opportunities and making those moments special for the parents that are there and the kids get a kick out of it as well.
They love the fact that they're getting emails home and I think for my staff in particular just recently, they've had some really lovely replies to those emails which therefore kind of I guess closes the loop in regards to actually there is a purpose to doing this because the parents are acknowledging them.
So do you mean that these are kind of individualised emails?
Yeah, absolutely. So sort of, I think on average, we're about three emails a week across the class. And it's just, I guess, just noticing those things that kids are doing well in the space. It might be a friendship interaction. It might be an academic interaction. It might be something that they talked about at a conference that's now improved.
So they're being shared with parents on a regular basis. And it just creates a culture of community and a culture of conversation that's, I guess, you know, creates that excitement and pride amongst the families that we have.
I'd like to think that, you know, around the dinner table, there's acknowledgement, whether parents have got little things set up to say, hey, look, and I like that concept of being at home and it being a positive experience because the child's put in some effort and it's been recognised.
How do you carve out the time for teachers to be able to do that?
Yeah, so we make sure it's part of our team meetings. So they create time within the team meetings that they have. It takes 10 minutes to send three emails. They don't have to be screeds and paragraphs long. It's just about taking those times to notice the successes that kids are having at school.
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