Family Involvement Inchildren's Education Successful Local Approaches an Idea Book

Children's Pedagogy

Strategies used by 20 local Title I programs to overcome barriers to parent involvement are featured in an idea book recently added to the U.S. Department of Education'southward Spider web site. Here we explore in-depth one of those programs.

"Family Involvement in Children'due south Education: Successful Local Approaches" is a recently released 150-folio idea book produced past the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) of the U.S. Section of Education. The book features strategies used past twenty Championship I programs to overcome barriers to parent involvement.

Among the 20 programs that are the focus of "Family Involvement in Children's Didactics: Successful Local Approaches," some involve parents in schoolhouse planning and governance activities, and as volunteers. Some too provide coordinated non-educational services for families to back up their children'due south academic development. All programs strengthen parent-school communications and help parents support children'southward bookish work at school and at home. Nearly all take created schoolwide programs and utilize Championship I ^* and other federal and local funds to back up various parent interest activities.

The new idea book is organized effectually strategies for overcoming a common set of barriers to family unit involvement in schools:

• overcoming time and resources constraints;
• providing data and training to parents and school staff;
• restructuring schools to support family interest;
• bridging school-family differences; and
• tapping external supports for partnerships.

Below are excerpts from one of 10 in-depth profiles in the book.

ATENVILLE ELEMENTARY School:
PARENTS AS EDUCATIONAL PARTNERS IN A RURAL SETTING

Atenville Simple School is located in a rural coal-mining community in southern West Virginia. The community struggles with high unemployment and poverty, and is geographically isolated from county social service agencies, which are located well-nigh one hour away in the county seat of Hamlin. Many Atenville families receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), and 83 percent of the school'south population is eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. All 213 students in grades preK-half dozen at Atenville are white. Most come from families who have lived in the Appalachian Mountains for generations. During the 1996-97 school year, Atenville began implementing a schoolwide program.

In the spring of 1991, Atenville applied to work with the Parent-Instructor Action Inquiry projection at the Institute for Responsive Education (IRE) in Boston, Massachusetts. This partnership resulted in the school developing its Parents every bit Educational Partners (PEP) Programme, which began during the 1991-92 school year. The major components of PEP include a "telephone tree" staffed by parent volunteers, a dwelling house visiting program, a parent coordinator, and the Atenville family unit center.

OVERCOMING TIME AND RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS

One challenge Atenville faces is that some parents do non own telephones or have access to adequate transportation. As part of the PEP plan, parent volunteers disseminate information and calendars of upcoming events by mail service and through give-and-take of mouth. To help parents nourish meetings and events, the principal and teachers oft adjust to pick upwards and transport those parents who do not have their own transportation.

Home visits target hard-to-reach parents.
The primary and teachers often visit the homes of parents who, for 1 reason or some other, have difficulty coming to the school building. Teachers employ release time to acquit their habitation visits, while the principal and other teachers embrace their classes. The main usually conducts her home visits on the weekends. The school's parent coordinator and phone tree parents comport about twenty home visits per year to families that are not actively involved in the school or whose children are experiencing difficulties in the classroom. The parent coordinator, who has been trained in domicile visiting, accompanies all schoolhouse staff and volunteers on these visits.

Time and resources for teachers to reach out.
All teachers at Atenville take telephones in their classrooms to communicate with parents throughout the mean solar day. Teachers employ these telephones to call parents whose children are absent or are misbehaving in class, as well as to report a child's adept progress. A daily in-school planning period and a duty-costless lunch menses afford teachers the time to call and come across with parents. In addition, students are dismissed 1-half hour early on Thursday afternoons, and teachers and parents serving on various committees tin use this fourth dimension for program planning.

PROVIDING INFORMATION AND Grooming TO PARENTS AND SCHOOL STAFF

The PEP plan relies heavily on communication between families and schools and on preparation for both parents and school staff. In response to requests from parents for improved communication, Atenville established its telephone tree in February 1992. Telephone tree parents volunteer to call xx to 25 families at the finish of each month. During these calls, telephone tree parents tell other parents virtually school activities scheduled for the coming calendar month, solicit feedback on the prior month'southward activities, and ask parents for suggestions on future activities and services. 2 examples follow:

• Considering many parents expressed concern that early dismissal on snow days meant their children were being sent home to empty houses, telephone tree parents call all parents on days when the school will exist closed or dismissed early on due to snow. If the telephone tree parent cannot get an answer at the child's firm on an early dismissal day, the child'south emergency care carte du jour is checked and an alternate contact person (such as a grandparent or a neighbor) is chosen.
• More than recently, telephone tree parents learned that parents were worried about their inability to assistance their children with a new math curriculum implemented during the 1992-93 school twelvemonth. In response, the schoolhouse offered two evening workshops to aid parents principal the skills emphasized past the new curriculum, which focuses more on circuitous word problems and less on traditional ciphering skills. Well-nigh 20 parents participated in the workshops, which were conducted by the local high school'due south seventh and eighth grade math teacher.

Telephone tree parents receive preparation from the school chief on telephone courtesy and on parent/teacher confidentiality. In add-on, they are trained to make home visits. Monthly meetings with the chief and parent coordinator enable telephone tree parents to share data and receive instructions for their monthly communications with parents.

Back up for learning at abode.
To help parents serve as their children's get-go teachers, Atenville offers parent workshops nigh 7 times each year on topics such as how to increase language evolution amongst young children, how to assist children acquire to read, how to help children with math, how to increase children's self-esteem, how to help with homework, and basic information nearly whole-linguistic communication reading didactics and portfolio assessment. An average of 25 parents attend each workshop, with turnout sometimes as high as 75 parents. Workshops are held in the school's family unit heart during the twenty-four hour period and taught on a volunteer ground by the primary, teachers, or the IRE facilitator.

Training for volunteers.
Parents are encouraged to volunteer at Atenville to assist teachers in the classroom, provide teachers and administrators with logistical support, and help supervise children in the library and during dejeuner and recreation periods. Equally a consequence, about viii to ten parents volunteer at the school each day. The schoolhouse offers parents ii volunteer training sessions each September; to accommodate parents with varied schedules, one session is offered during the day and the other at night. These sessions not only teach parents most schoolhouse policies, specially in the areas of subject and confidentiality, only also provide them with guidance on assisting teachers in the classroom equally teacher aides and tutors. About 100 parents participate in the training each yr.

Training staff to collaborate and set goals.
The PEP program is guided past the schoolhouse improvement council and an action research squad (composed of the chief, ii teachers, two parents, a parent coordinator, and an IRE project facilitator), which was formed to support efforts to make parents true partners with teachers in the educational process. All members of the activeness research squad receive training on action research two or three times a year from IRE. Last year, team members received 2-day preparation sessions on: (1) collaboration and activeness plans and (2) goal-setting. Team members share these new skills with other teachers and parents on the two or iii staff development days scheduled each year. In addition, all teachers encounter with the parent coordinator at the monthly kinesthesia senate meetings to hash out the parent involvement plan and to receive feedback gathered from the phone tree and home visits.

RESTRUCTURING SCHOOLS TO Back up FAMILY Interest

The PEP program represents a major delivery from the school staff and community to improve student achievement by restructuring the school to support a successful school-family partnership. Restructuring efforts included assessing family needs, designing a family unit center to serve as the headquarters for parent volunteer activities and to firm the parent coordinator, and maximizing parent determination-making.

Assessing family needs.
One of the first steps taken by Atenville was to hire a part-time parent coordinator in December 1991. In late 1991 and early 1992, the parent coordinator and other parent volunteers conducted home visits to get together information on how families viewed the school and to seek their input on the design of the parent involvement program. During the 1994-95 school year, data was also collected from focus groups involving parents, teachers, students, and the entire Harts community under the management of the community-wide schoolhouse comeback steering committee. The school program and the PEP program continuously adjust their services based on information gathered from these sources. For instance, the focus groups showed that parents were concerned virtually their children'southward transition from elementary schoolhouse to junior loftier school. As a result, a subcommittee that included ane parent and one staff member each from Atenville, Ferrellsburg Simple, and Harts Loftier recommended block scheduling, like to that implemented in the loftier schoolhouse, for 4th through sixth graders. This recommendation was implemented during the 1995-96 school year. Together the parent coordinator and the telephone tree provide school staff with the means to gather useful parent perspectives on a variety of educational activity-related issues.

New uses of school space to welcome parents.
A central component of the PEP program, the Atenville family heart serves equally the headquarters for parent volunteer activities at the schoolhouse and houses the part of the parent coordinator. Established in the fall of 1991, the centre posts of import school-related information for parents. Also, the centre is the location for preschool and kindergarten registration, for parent workshops, and for PTA meetings. To encourage communication amongst teachers and parents, the family center also serves as the instructor workroom and as an informal lounge for parents and teachers to see and accept coffee or lunch together. Teachers are encouraged to spend their planning periods in the eye and to eat lunch there whenever possible. Between eight and x parents and sixteen teachers visit the family centre each day.

Maximizing parent controlling.
Parents participate on all committees at Atenville, including the action research squad, the 13-member school improvement quango that guides all school decisions, and the eleven-member schoolwide program planning team that was formed last twelvemonth to develop the schoolwide plan for Title I.

A parent from Atenville as well sits on a customs-wide schoolhouse comeback steering committee that guides school reform for the entire community, including the expansion of the PEP plan to the local loftier schoolhouse and the other elementary schoolhouse in Harts. Atenville parents sit on all 11 subcommittees of this steering committee, addressing issues such as curriculum, staff development, building and facilities, parent interest, and health and wellness. A subcommittee on transitions to high schoolhouse specifically engages parents of older children to decide strategies for easing the transition from sixth grade to seventh grade.

In developing its schoolwide program this year, Atenville received an additional boost in its parent involvement activities through a newly adult school-parent compact. Although Atenville has had a parent involvement policy for some time, the schoolwide program planning squad revised the programme in the bound of 1996 to reflect the goals of the PEP plan. Staff, parents, and students drafted the compact at an open meeting attended by 15 parents, three teachers, two students, and the primary. The compact assigns specific responsibilities to students, parents, teachers, and the school principal, in order to help all Atenville students meet West Virginia's high educatee performance standards.

For instance, students agree to attend schoolhouse regularly and be ready and prepared to learn. Parents agree to provide a good learning surround at dwelling by assisting their child with homework and providing a consistent time and place for homework. Teachers hold to continually change and suit the curriculum to come across the needs of all students, maintain high expectations for all students, and participate in ongoing staff development. The main agrees to fulfill a number of responsibilities, including communicating and working with families and staff to support students' learning and providing a safe surround for learning. The schoolhouse presented and distributed the meaty to all parents who attended an open business firm potluck supper during the first week of school. Those parents who missed the open house received a habitation visit from the parent coordinator and a telephone tree parent to review the compact. All parents also received a handbook on how to become involved in their children'south education.

BRIDGING School-FAMILY DIFFERENCES

"It was almost as if the parents were saying, 'They're your responsibility during the mean solar day, you teach them,' and the teachers were saying, 'They're your responsibleness in the evening, you make sure they're prepared to do well in schoolhouse.'"

-- Teacher, Atenville Unproblematic School

Both parents and teachers report that building comfort and trust between schoolhouse and home is an intensive and ongoing procedure. At the offset of the program, many parents did not trust the teachers or the school -- too many parents had negative schoolhouse experiences of their own. As a result, the school established new partnerships to provide parents with the educational assistance they need, and many parents who participated in school-sponsored adult teaching classes have gone on to receive their General Educational Development (GED) credential and enroll in iv-year college programs. On the other side of the coin, many teachers did not desire parents in their classrooms because they viewed them as a disruption.

One helpful strategy has been the date of the parent coordinator, who is seen every bit an important asset in bridging school-family differences. All the same Atenville has establish defining the role of the parent coordinator to exist a challenge. To build trust among both parents and teachers, parents need to think of her more equally a parent, yet staff need to think of her more as a staff member. Both parents and staff demand to feel like the parent coordinator is "on their side." For example, when parents and school staff disagreed over the employ of whole language strategies for reading instruction, the parent coordinator served as a mediator between the two.

TAPPING EXTERNAL SUPPORTS FOR SCHOOL-FAMILY PARTNERSHIPS

The PEP programme is funded primarily through Championship I, Goals 2000, and IRE. Atenville has established several partnerships to meet various family unit needs. For instance, to help parents improve their own skills, the school and Southern West Virginia Community College cosponsor for-credit courses in computers and math. Parents can participate in classes at the school for two hours (ane 60 minutes for each course) every Monday evening during the fall semester. Atenville teachers who conduct the classes receive $250 stipends from the customs higher. All other costs are covered through a grant from the Benedum Foundation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Last twelvemonth, 32 parents participated in these classes. Atenville also works with national organizations to provide families with needed materials and services. Monthly donations from Children, Inc., a program based in Richmond, Virginia, provide the school with vesture and other material goods for needy families. Through a partnership with Youth Works, a religious organization in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 60 to 70 youth volunteers come to Atenville every yr for six weeks during the summer to assistance families with housecleaning, abode repairs, and other needs.

To ensure that children have access to wellness care, a pediatric mobile unit paid for by the West Virginia Children's Health Project visits the school each Th. The family centre serves equally the waiting room for those needing to be seen past staff of the pediatric unit, and a parent volunteer acts every bit receptionist. A local dentist volunteers by visiting the school once a year to provide all children with free dental screenings. After the screenings, each parent receives a checklist of the dental services their child needs. The parent interest program at Atenville has too served as a catalyst for the establishment of a community library at the local high school funded through the Goals 2000 program.

EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS

Parent involvement at Atenville Elementary has increased dramatically since the PEP program began. During the 1995-96 school year, parents volunteered more than than 7, 000 hours at the schoolhouse, compared with 2,000 hours during the 1991-92 school year. In 1995-96, 100 parents, representing almost one-half of the families at the school, participated in the annual volunteer training.

Student accomplishment has as well increased since the program began. At the end of the 1991-92 schoolhouse year, Atenville third and 6th graders scored in the 59th and 58th percentiles, respectively, on the Comprehensive Examination of Bones Skills (CTBS). At the end of the 1995-96 schoolhouse twelvemonth, third graders scored in the 71st percentile, and sixth graders scored in the 63rd percentile. Co-ordinate to a survey question on the CTBS, the percentage of sixth-grade students who believed that they would graduate from high schoolhouse and nourish higher grew during this time flow from 72 pct to 79 percent. In addition, the number of students participating in an after-school tutoring program increased from 21 to 62 over a contempo 3-year period. Student discipline has as well improved. Suspensions have decreased from 12 during the 1990-91 school year, to an average of three per year since then. Student attendance rose slightly from 93 per centum in 1991-92 to 94 percent in 1995-96.

School staff also note that parents are at present more organized and more song near decisions that affect their children. Recently, the Lincoln County Board of Education sought to reconfigure Atenville and another district elementary school by placing K-iii in the other school and grades 4-six in Atenville. Parents from Atenville challenged the board'southward conclusion based on their experience with the PEP program. They argued that the Chiliad-6 model fosters a more sustained interaction between home and school, and that disrupting this relationship would decrease parent interest. Every bit a result, the lath reversed its determination. The success of the PEP program has non only served as a catalyst for similar parent involvement programs at two other schools in the district, Ferrellsburg Elementary and Harts High School, only has as well encouraged a customs broad school improvement effort.

^* A schoolwide programme schoolhouse may use its Title I Office A funds combined with other federal pedagogy funds to upgrade the school's entire educational programme rather than to deliver federally supported services only to identified children. Under the Improving America's Schools Human activity (IASA), Title I requires that local schools and districts adopt specific strategies for developing school-family partnerships. Championship I parent involvement provisions emphasize: policy interest past parents at the school and district level; shared school-family unit responsibility for high bookish performance, every bit expressed in schoolhouse-parent compacts; and the development of school and parent capacity for productive mutual collaboration. These Title I requirements might serve as useful guidelines for all schools every bit they strengthen school-family unit partnerships.

"Family unit Involvement in Children's Education: Successful Local Approaches" (October 1997) was produced by the Role of Educational Enquiry and Improvement (OERI) of the U.Due south. Section of Teaching. Oliver Moles of the National Institute on the Teaching of At-Risk Students was project officer. Assistance was provided past Janie Funkhouser and Miriam Gonzales of Policy Studies Associates. The above summary was provided by Kirk Winters, U.Due south. Department of Education [email protected].

The entire Idea Volume can be constitute on the U.S. Department of Education's Web site. Paper copies may be purchased from the Government Printing Office ($xiii) by calling (202) 512-1800 or mailing a cheque or money order to Superintendent of Documents, Postal service Part Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954. When ordering, it is helpful to have the stock number: #065-000-01085-2.

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03/xvi/1998

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