Back To School: How Parent Engagement Affects Student Achievement.

Follow the Author At Twitter Mary Johnson@mjadvocate

It may be one of the least controversial statements in school community: Parent Engagement can make a difference in a child’s education. The conflict can come, though, on how to define that engagement. Do all the PTA meetings, take-home flyers and Back to School nights actually generate increases in student achievement? I never heard of Bake sale model every increasing students achievement. Parent-U-Turn n examined the research and found that creating a partnership between parents and schools community focused on academics impact on student learning.

Parent-U-Turn Standards for Parents, Caregivers and Parent Leaders.

Standards for Parent Engagement, seven standards are delineated. These standards fall under three larger organizers, as shown below, and include:
The Focus of Parents Rights and Advocacy & The Conditions for Parent rights and Advocacy & Parent as a Advocate

Standard 1: ParentsAccess to information and Data collection:
• Access to information: The school/ district inform parents of testing results and the statistics of the area/school/subject matter.
 Information of results/statistics available via handouts or on-line
 The results would be printed in multiple languages
 Alert system to inform parents that the information is available
 Contact person that parents can ask to help them read and understand results-how readily available is this person.
 Parents understand and use varied assessments to inform instruction, evaluate and ensure student learning.

• Collection and Analyzing data:
o The school welcome parents on campus for research or just to observe.
 How easy or hard is it for a parent to come on campus for these purposes?
 Some type of procedure should be in place and strictly abided by, by all involved as to accommodate the parent as well as not to cause too much classroom disruption.
 There a person who is readily available to provide the parent support to conduct research.
Standards 2: Parents in Decision-Making Roles
 Parents must be representative of school population, for example 1 parent for 3,000 students is not acceptable
 Space for parents to have access to administrators.
 The attitude of administration generally open to parent collaboration.
 Parents treated as reflective thinkers with possible solutions.
 Expanding roles of existing modes of parent representation, for example the PTA
 Parents can carry out research for the school, conduct trainings for other parents or even teachers on various subjects

Step 3: Parents as Student Advocates:
 Teachers are open to have parents contact/participate within their classes
 The school is informing parents on how to contact people within the power map
o For example: A handout which lists, “If you have a problem with _________ then you would contact _________ at number and office.”
 This can be in a handout that was sent home but is readily available at school functions, front office, and maybe even in the classroom.
 Trainings provided for the parent and school personnel which include power-mapping.
 Provide a list of common school-used terms complete with the definition of the term and the context it is most commonly used is readily available and sent home.
 Parents collaborate and communicate with students, parents, other educators, administrators and the community to support student learning

Standards 4: Parent Leaders at Home and in the School-Community
 Information being passed out to parents to inform them of the college process and resources available to their child and family.
o Handouts
 A process for reserving space at the school to facilitating easy meeting space for parents and the community.
 Assigned a person to be able to go to for trainings
 Parents assume responsibility for professional growth, performance, and involvement as individuals and as members of a learning community

Standards 5: Parents Effective Two-Way Communication:
 Efficient amount of translators readily available for all languages spoken by parents at school functions
o Handouts in multiple languages
o “Efficient” would be at least 90% of the teachers who need translators have them
 For any type of communication home, teleparent or phone calls home, are the comments balanced between positive comments and things that the student needs improvement on.
 Teacher respond to e-mail of phone messages within a timely manner.
 Ongoing evaluation of effectiveness of the parent liaison.

Standards 6: Parent District Level Support
 The district have a point-person whom the parent representative, the administrator who is the point-person at the school, and any other relevant persons could go to for support and resources. How available is this person?
o This person could even run the parent-district meetings and act like the liaison for the district.
 An effect program that supports parent participation, may have minimum of 25 parent.

Standards 7: Friendly School Atmosphere
 Is the school clean?
o Trash
o Tagging
o Paint: Dingy? Peeling?
 Welcome signs
 Office personnel and Teachers maintain professionalism, have an understanding of and practices good customer service.
 Parents understand student learning and development, and respect the diversity of the students.

Who is involved?

Local survey data from Parent-U-Turn grass root organizier research shows that open house and Back to school night meetings is the leading form of parent participation in schools, followed by school fundraising activities at elementary level..
The survey also found some distinct variations by race. K-12 parents when working with PTA..
The survey have shown that lower-income and minority parents often have the less level of involvement in education as others — even though it may be reflected at PTA meetings or school fundraisers. Working with PTA, very little parents attend academic workshops.

What kind of engagement works best?

When determining what types of engagement work best, a major report by Parent Researchers founded one factor: “Programs and interventions that engage families in supporting their children’s learning styles are linked to higher student achievement.”

Examples of learning styles::
Types of Learning Styles: A Renaissance Child A well-balanced, intelligent child is able to develop all three types of learning styles. Just because a child has a dominant learning style doesn’t mean that the other types can’t be improved. Having just one dominant learning style, and relying on that style only, can debilitate a child’s true potential. There are many different ways to train the different types of learning styles, but it ultimately comes down to training the cognitive skills. Cognitive skills are the foundational building blocks of each learning style. Without properly trained cognitive skills, a child isn’t able to use or take advantage of the other learning styles effectively.

What about other types of engagement?

Parent mentors work in schools to build a bridge for joining administrators, teachers, staff and families to help students succeed in school.

Parent mentors work with families by providing resources, tips, and ideas to help parents guide students through their school career and into transition from school into adult life.

Parent mentors work with communities helping schools and families work within the communities they live and work in to create job and recreational opportunities for their children and improve the quality of life for adults with disabilities.

Developing partnership with School Community

Effective parent involvement comes when a true partnership exists between schools and families. Developing that partnership, especially around academics, is what works for student achievement A transparency and meaningful partnership meets the needs of the families, schools, and communities involved and embedded each of the concepts below in ways that are unique to the school community.
• Communication is the foundation of effective partnerships
• Schools can outreach through community organizations
• Parents and caregivers can support schools and children’s learning in important ways
• Schools Community should create an atmosphere that welcomes parents and community leaders
• Families should be encouraged to develop their own knowledge and skills
• School Community can provide cultural relevance for staff and parents
• Leadership training should be provided for teachers staff, parents, and students interested in participating in school governance
• Parents Becoming Students Advocates
• School Community should collaborate with community organizations.
A transparency and meaningful partnership meets the needs of the families, schools, and communities involved and embedded each of the concepts below in ways that are unique to the school community.
• Communication is the foundation of effective partnerships
• Schools can outreach through community organizations
• Parents and caregivers can support schools and children’s learning in important ways
• Schools Community should create an atmosphere that welcomes parents and community leaders
• Families should be encouraged to develop their own knowledge and skills
• School Community can provide cultural relevance for staff and parents
• Leadership training should be provided for teachers staff, parents, and students interested in participating in school governance
• Parents Becoming Students Advocates
• School Community should collaborate with community organizations.
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Actions school boards can take:
As Parent-U-Turn concluded: “Recognize that all parents, regardless of income, education or cultural background, are involved in their children’s learning and want their children to do above average,.”
1) Staff from school programs (district, school or nonprofit run) share detailed information about their programs/services and expected student outcomes to all staff, parents and students. All stakeholders know about and understand the programs/services offered to their school community.
2) School staff develops an assessment team that includes parents and students that inventories all school programs and services at least annually.
3) The assessment team periodically assesses each program based on multiple measures including participation levels, participant surveys, students’ progress and whether their needs are addressed.
4) The assessment team makes the assessment results public in parent-friendly language.
5) Based on the assessment results, the team develops improvement plans with specific benchmarks.
6)Trainings for stakeholders: Designated, knowledgeable school staff (counselors, teachers) offer parent trainings on:
7) How to maintain a home learning environment that supports student academic success including topics like the academic standards and the student curriculum;
How to understand and interpret student report cards, standardized tests and other assessments, the School Accountability Report Card (SARC), and evaluations
9) All school stakeholders (school staff, parents, students) must be trained in culturally and linguistically competency.
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LEA must continue to survey school community or otherwise track the effects of engagement, in order to use schools community source and resources wisely. In theset economic times, focus on putting school community money and energy into what works best, rather than continuing ineffective programs.