Chapter 9: Involving Parents and Communities

Abstract

Parent involvement is a good way to improve student learning. When a student's family can meet certain criteria (comfortable home environment, high expectations, involvement in school), students are more likely to have higher grades, attend school regularly, have positive attitudes, and more likely to graduate high school and go on to college. Unfortunately, most parents think that taking a step back and letting their children do their own thing promotes maturity and responsibility. Others may feel intimidated by teachers because of their own bad experiences with school. Some may not be proficient in English. Some families just don't have the time. It is important to keep the school as open as possible to the parents. It can sometimes be helpful to create School-Family-Community Partnerships. These teams work together to make decisions, while regarding all opinions. The authors also discuss the key aspects of effective parent-school relations: establishing continuity between home and school, monitoring students' work, out-of-school learning, and on-site involvement. Finally, the authors provide ways to link adolescent learning to community resources. There can be service learning or career education programs. There are also certain after-school programs that students can join.

Reflection

I really enjoyed this chapter. I like how the authors provide a number of different ways to involve both the parents and the community. I fully support the idea of parents getting more involved with their students' school lives. They may see them in a whole new light. They may realize that their child has a talent for writing or mathematics or chemistry. If parents just let their child run free in order to "promote maturity," they may miss out on a lot of important happenings in their child's life. In my own classroom, I plan on reaching parents in any way that I can. I want to make sure that the parents of my students get to know me on a good note before I start calling them about how Sally hasn't passed in any of her homework.