How to Write a Teacher Newsletter
Friday, August 18th, 2006 
Teacher newsletters are a great way for educators to communicate and share ideas with each other. These newsletters can also serve as opportunities to inform teachers about the latest legislation regarding nationwide and state-specific education. Below are a few tips to ensure that your teacher newsletter is as effective as possible.
Consider featuring an advice column written by a veteran teacher. New teachers could submit questions to the column writer and they could be answered each issue. Not only would this feature benefit a newcomer but all teachers could benefit from seeing the perspective of a co-worker.
Publish a compiled list of informative websites for teachers. Possible websites could include those that address common classroom behavorial problems and offer advice on how to deal with the problem most effectively. Listed websites could include possible lesson plans and fresh classroom activity ideas.
Include a section about happenings within the NEA and within state and local Boards of Education. Providing such information will keep everyone in the know and will foster discussion about current events among the teachers. You may also want to publish the public meeting list of your county’s School Board.
A fun idea to help all teachers within one school get to know each other is to feature a regular spotlight column. For each newsletter edition, a different teacher’s biography and picture could appear. In addition, you could feature a short article written by the spotlighted teacher about their favorite lesson plan or about what they have learned about what does and what does not work in the classroom during their teaching career.
Feature a section for each grade level to post about successful class projects, field trips, etc. Everyone enjoys being able to “see” in on the action so be sure to include photos with each section if applicable. You may also want to include quotes from students who enjoyed and benefited from the project and/or trip.