The goal of The Panther Post, the School Counseling Newsletter for all Gulfview Middle School families, is to help parents and students stay informed about what's going on in and around our GVM community. The Newlsetter is published through a publication website called, "Smore". Over the last three years of creating this communication piece, I have seen success in helping parents stay involved in their child's education in beautiful ways. Parents are able to have conversations with their child about upcoming school events, visit various activities and events in our community as a family, and help their child feel independent through gentle reminders about upcoming due dates and deadlines. Whether parents live with their student or abroad, this newsletter reaches families of all types and helps connect children and parents in meaningful and practical ways.
The Newsletter is comprised of several "articles" each month, all designed to promote connection and purpose in our students and their families:
1. A welcome and introduction
2. "Dates to Know": Upcoming dates/events at Gulfview Middle
3. Multiple articles providing details for upcoming events, school wide initiatives, how parents can be involved, and more
4. Parent Hack of the Month: Parenting tips and tricks to help students have a great middle school experience
5. Classroom Lesson Update: Parents are provided with the topic that School Counselors will be teaching that month through classroom lessons or morning announcements and are provided with follow up questions to engage with their child about the content of the lessons
6. Naples Family Events This Month: A list of events going on in the Naples community, providing a chance for parents and their student to connect and bond through meaningful time spent together
7. Counselor Contact Information To provide parents with a reminder to be in communication with the school to help students have a great experience in middle school
The wonderful this about this platform for Newsletter publication is the data provided about the newsletter. Smore, the company that is used to publish the newsletter, provides monthly data on how many parents are reading the newsletter, the average time they spend when reading it, if/when links provided are clicked, and more. It is from this data that the newsletter is able to see what is most helpful to provide to our families and capitalize on that to best serve our GVM family and community.
The subscription is a one-time yearly fee of that will cover all our monthly newsletters and even additional notices we may send out through Smore (community Food Banks, special events, etc) through August, 2027.
