Increasing Parent Involvement, Success Team Suggestions

Getting Parents Involved At Home

Parent Groups and Programs

1. Establish a pact with parents that they will attend a parent meeting regularly.
2. Establish an advisory program that includes contact with parents.
3. Provide parent-training programs (such as STARR workshops) to promote home learning.
4. Use parents as mentors to other parents that have been involved in alternative school programs.
5. Volunteer parent groups or maybe action research group for parents.
6. Principals can have meetings with parents (lunches, coffee, etc.) at homes of other parents or at other locations.
7. A parent volunteer room with a coffee pot and snacks can make volunteers feel welcome. Let the parents work out staffing it. This is the place to bring papers to be copied, a student who needs to have something read, etc.
8. Have each parent try to bring one more parent.
9. National Network of Partnership Schools, headed by Dr. Joyce Epstein at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, identified different types of parent involvement. It’s more than just volunteering at schools, which is often what schools think of. However, this type of involvement is not feasible to some parents, who may be able to support and contribute in other ways.

Make It Easier For Parents

1. Provide materials in multiple languages.
2. Build some trust factor and a relationship with parents.
3. Make contact early with parents so they have a more positive attitude toward schools.
4. Work with attitude of teachers to be more accepting of parents.
5. Be more proactive in going out to parents. Find where they are – go there.
6. A school-parent liaison can be funded through Title I. This can be a position other than a faculty member so teachers don’t see an extensive parent involvement program as yet another added responsibility.
7. Community activities should be used as reach out programs. Sometimes parents who won’t come to school will attend an event at a “neutral” community site. Don’t forget the parents who can’t volunteer. They may not be able to come to school, but they might be found at community activities like a church’s garage sale.
8. Sandwich parent meetings between student performances.
9. Videotape meetings and keep a library of tapes for parents to borrow.
10. Open schools to community for use of library, computers, etc. at night.
11. Home/School visits.
12. Once every two months send a newsletter to parents.
13. Letters home and/or e-mails to parents for information by all staff.

What The School Can Do

In General:

1. School should determine the importance of parent involvement and the best vehicle to achieve it.
2. Restructure “parent involvement” on a school wide basis.
3. Make a plan for possible resources to use in various levels of education, then assign specifically who does what and follow up.
4. Parent involvement programs or efforts should be conceptualized as aspects of clearly focused academic improvement efforts – as one facet of a multiple strategy to improve math or reading and not as a goal in itself. One example of this is Family Math and Science programs.
5. Contact PPP. Provide PPP workshops regarding assessment, etc.
6. Student discipline, 1st offense - certain consequences, 2nd offense - parent conference. Most students never make it past the 2^nd offense when consequences are more drastic.
7. More specific monitoring of MAP progress to determine lacks to involve parents in. Develop solutions or plans for success. MAP released items on Parent Night.
8. Involve children more in getting parents there. Student led conferences and student led IEP conferences attract parents.
9. Personal invitation to parents to visit classroom by all staff.
10. Contact families before and during school.
11. Make direct appeals to specific parents. Each teacher should believe that the parents of his/her 25 students ARE his/her responsibility. At the high school level, this could be assigned by first hour class, homeroom, or some other way to apportion the parents to specific teachers. Don’t let parents fall through the cracks.
12. One school made a list of its most “at-risk” kids, and each teacher “adopted” two (and their families) – a long-term mentor/advocate relationship.

Special Activities And Events:

1. Community picnic off school grounds to meet new teachers.
2. Public meetings with giveaways to express gravity of situation.
3. Parent involvement Campaign – Biweekly campaign that the students have to report back on. South Nodaway has a monthly calendar for that involvement.
4. Parent fair or other activity every time grade cards are given out.
5. Reading parent program – elementary.
6. Follow Your Child’s Schedule Day.
7. MAP night in the evening. Library/Tutoring Night. Family Writing/Open Computers. Reading Breakfast/Brown Bag lunch with kids.
8. (Family Nite with Pajama Rama Reading Nite went from 7 parents to 200) Plan sustained family events to get parents to school and get them involved.
9. Some schools have utilized an activity in which parents do a sample MAP-like test or item. This is also good professional development for teachers; once they experience MAP-type items, they may realized how their instruction needs to change.
10. The fifth grade class of a STARR teacher did a daylong Writer’s Celebration, from 6am to 6pm. The event would have been carried over another day if any parents had been unable to visit during that time. It was an open house in the classroom that day, with a focus on writing – student’s portfolios and journals; writing about different content areas; steps in the writing process; a student-created magazine; a comment page for parents, etc.
11. A science night can be structured with students assigned to each station on a rotating basis. Students must be able to explain each experiment to the parents who visit the stations during their turn.

What The Success Team Can Do

1. How do we get the Success Schools to see the need for better parent involvement?
2. Convince them of the connection between parent involvement and student performance.
3. Follow up with ideas for effective activities to involve parents.
4. We want districts to write a plan to address needs, then look at resources and what can be done, including how to involve parents. We can help give the school appropriate tools for their target including information on the resources available such as Parents as Teachers, PPP, and ParentLink.
5. Educate administrators regarding available programs and resources to enlist parental support. Due to administrator changes; may not be aware of involvement in these initiatives.
6. In-district workshops for the whole school are more effective than train-the-trainer models. No matter how enthusiastic the “trainers” are, it needs to be a whole-school effort.
7. Involve teams from identified schools (administrators, teacher leaders, parents, board members) in meeting to consider areas of support they need – Survey:
   1. To what degree are parents involved in schools and to what degree do they think it’s important?
   2. To what degree are your patrons and teachers involved in PAT? Percent of patrons with pre-school children in PAT?
   3. What are some strategies that your district has tried to increase involvement in PAT?
      • Direct mailing
      • Phone solicitations
      • Part of PTA/PTO meeting
      • Media effort from school administrator
   4. What is current Title I involvement in PAT (%)?
   5. Is your district actively involved with PPP?
   6. What workshop activities have parents/teachers done with PPP?
   7. How can an Area Team help to explain importance of PAT and PPP to parents and teachers in your district?
      • Public meeting with parents and teachers
      • Mailings
      • Meeting with Professional Development teams
      • PTO/PTA meeting
   8. What are some other activities in which there has been parental involvement?
      • Character education
      • High attendance at PTO/PTA (90%)
8. Connect schools with successful parent contacts with others.
9. STARR teachers have done workshops for parents, for example, on cooperative discipline.
10. Would it be useful for new STARR teachers to take the two-day PPP training?
11. Provide PPP video for each Success District.
12. Regional Parent Workshop for Success Schools.
13. Follow-up activities to the PPP training could be structured through the RPDC, perhaps offering college credit.
14. Put information about successful parent programs into the RPDC newsletter.
15. The Accelerated Schools staff can present a workshop on Ruby Payne’s Framework for Understanding Poverty, which can be an eye-opener for some faculties. For example, teachers might dress more casually for parent/teacher conferences in order to be more like working class parents.
16. Teach about effective communication with schools boards, in parent teacher conferences (should be structured for dialogue) and with parents regarding MAP scores and achievement in general (utilizing MAP Senior Leaders).
17. Joyce Epstein research on parent involvement.
18. 3^rd cycle MSIP helps focus district’s parent involvement.
19. Talk with schools in our area on list of PPP to find out if they are implementing any part of the program. Gather parent involvement participation information from the area supervisor.
20. See where they are with PAT/percentages – implementation and/or involvement. How do they interface with Head Start and other programs for preschoolers? What happens to children who are not served pre-school?
21. What is the current Title I parent involvement?
22. PPP – good but time and cost.

Close the Gap Consortium

Missouri Department of Elementary & Secondary Education          

Missouri Regional Professional Development Centers

For additional information contact: Howard Jones, Project SUCCESS Coordinator.

Project SUCCESS is sponsored by The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

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