Gmail in the Classroom

I enter all of my parents email addresses in my contacts at the beginning of the school year, and set up a group mailing list to send out at the very least a weekly newsletter.  On the notes section of each parent, I put the student name and the name of their mother, father, and/or other guardian, or whatever the case may be.  This helps me if there are kids that have different last names from their parents.  I can do a search for the student, and the parents will show up because I have the child's name in notes.