Designing Effective Parent

Designing Effective Parent-Community Involvement in

Schools.

3rd Annual International Seminar on Partnerships in Education

Salvador, Brazil

by Dr. Terry Peterson

Terry is the Director of the Afterschool and Community Learning Resource Network, which is an International grant project funded by the Mott Foundation. He is also a Senior Fellow at The University of South Carolina and the College of Charleston.

Children do better when we all work

together.

Almost 90% of our children’s waking hours are spent outside of the

school.

Parental involvement in education is a high predictor of

their children’s success.

Money magazine found that community support and engagement with their local public schools was the best indicator of a municipal

school district’s success.

Schools can’t do it alone.

We educate our children in families, schools, and communities.

Clearly, education partnerships are the 21st Century Solution

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders,

but they have never failed to imitate them.”

-- James Baldwin

Different sectors of the community that can help our children learn and stay safe:

Employers

University and high school students

Faith-based organizations

Cultural institutions

Senior citizens

Employers

Encourage and make it easier for employees to be involved as tutors and

mentors, and bring students to the businesses for “job shadowing”

The relationship between learning and future employment is emphasized.

Example

One chamber of commerce in a city encouraged all their employer

members to invite their employees to volunteer one hour a week in a local school on their own time, then the

employer would pay for one additional hour to be a volunteer every two

weeks.

University and high school students

When college students link up with local elementary and secondary schools

to help younger students with the improvement of skills a powerful message is sent about why it is important to keep on learning.

Example

In Los Angeles, high school students, with teacher guidance, help recruit,

train, and manage a tutoring program for elementary students. The program

is called Literacy Loop.

Faith-based organizations

Can reach out to and help parents, teachers, and principals work together.

A powerful message about the importance of community

collaboration in education is sent.

Cultural institutions

Bring the excitement of art and music to the in-school and after school

experiences. Art and music deliver a powerful message about the

importance of creativity in learning.

Senior citizens

Can be used to teach some of their crafts and oral history…as well as become loving tutors and mentors.

Powerful connections between generations can be made.

ExampleIn a rural area in the Appalachian

region of the United States, a group of senior citizens are working with a group of middle school children to write and perform traditional mountain music on

instruments they build together.

A final critical partnership to focus on:

Family-School Partnerships

A very important and recent synthesis of over 50 research studies was released by the Center for Family and Community

Connections with Schools.

The findings are summarized in a publication called “A New Wave of Evidence – The Impact of School,

Family and Community Connection on Student Achievement.”

A New Wave of Evidence -

Students with involved parents, no matter what their income or background, were more

likely to:

Earn higher grades and test scores

Be promoted and pass their classes

Attend school regularly

Have better social skills and improved behavior

Certain special efforts by schools seem to payoff in

greater parent involvement.

Teacher outreach – i.e. meeting face to face with parents, sending materials

home for parents to use, and keeping in touch about student progress.

Workshops for parents on helping their children at home increased student

reading and math skills.

Schools that succeed in engaging families from

diverse backgrounds share these three practices:

Build trusting collaborative relationships among teachers,

families, and community members.

Recognize, and address families’ needs, as well as

class and cultural differences

“The more people participate in the process of their own education …the

more people participate in the development of their selves. The more people become themselves, the better

the democracy.”

-- Paulo Freire

Embrace a philosophy of partnership where power and

responsibility are shared.

There is a newer type of engagement that is openly focused on building low-income families’

power and political skills to improve learning opportunities.

Community organizing contributed to a number of changes:

• Upgraded school facilities

• Improved school leadership and staffing

• New resources and programs to improve teaching and curriculum

• New funding for after-school programs

How can you put these all of these findings

into action?

Recognize that all parents- regardless of income and education – are involved

in their children’s learning and want their children to

do well.

Design programs that will support families to guide their children’s learning from preschool to high

school.

Develop the capacity of school staff to work with families.

Link efforts to engage families, whether based at school or in the community, to student learning.

Build families’ social and political connections.

Focus efforts to engage families and community members on developing trusting and respectful relationships.

Embrace a philosophy of partnership where power and

responsibility are shared.

If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are

planning for a lifetime, educate people.

--Chinese proverb

Build strong connections between school and community

organizations.

Building family-school partnerships is not easy and takes time, but, in the long run, is a powerful way to

create better students, better schools, and better communities.

“ I slept and dreamt…that life was a joy.

I awoke and found…that life was duty.

I acted and behold…duty was joy.”

- Tagore, Indian poet