What an awesome idea.

Educators often say that the support and training students receive at home is an essential part of their success at school. Perhaps with that in mind, teachers at a Leavenworth elementary school didn’t wait for parents to come to school; they went to them.

Instead of mailing letters or posting lists in a hallway to inform students who their teacher for the year would be, Lawson Elementary School principal Kevin Lunsford and every teacher at his school fanned out across an 11-square-mile-area Wednesday and knocked on nearly 200 doors to introduce themselves to students and their families.

While students were meeting their teachers, teachers also were learning something about the home environment from which their students were coming. Parents who might never make it to a teacher conference or PTA meeting met their child’s teacher. Teachers praised the experience, saying it started the year off on a positive note and opened up an instant line of communication with parents. That contact, they said, will make it easier to talk with parents if problems arise.

Lunsford came up with the idea of personal visits last year. Perhaps he isn’t the first principal to implement such a policy, but it certainly seems like an idea that other districts in Kansas and elsewhere might consider emulating.