Keeping in touch with parents in the community is very critical to every child's success within the school. Newsletters are a great way to keep in touch. I think that a bi-monthly school newsletter and a monthly classroom newsletter is a great way to do this.
Word and Microsoft publisher have great templates to help you create these newsletters. Templates provide an easy way to have an end product that is tailored to your needs but also gives you a "jumping off" point. It gives you ideas within the templates of what information might be helpful in each section. They also give you the layout ideas for each item.
I think templates are a great way to start creating something new that is very complex and that you need a guide for to help you organize your thoughts. Newletters are a great example of templates.
Do you think that templates, newsletters in particular, are a great thing to use and can be a useful tool in keeping in touch with parents?