Improving Parent Involvement
“One of the most important factors in creating a good school is always going to be parental involvement in its life”
(U.S. Department of Education, 1993, p.7.)
Parent involvement includes a wide variety of parent behaviors. Research indicates that what parents do at home with their children has more influence in their children’s academic performance, than how much parents are involved in their children’s school activities. Most often those parents who are most knowledgeable and engaged in their children’s school activities are also most nurturant of their children’s academic performance at home. When parents are involved, students perform most successfully and have fewer learning problems.
“According to scientific analysis, when parents are more involved, their children are 30% more successful in school”
(Parent Institute – www.parent-institute.com)
When parents fail to become involved, educators may have the tendency to blame the parents, as being “too busy, experience too may barriers to overcome to become involved, too disinterested, having their own problems."
This section of the website is designed to provide educators with suggestions of ways to proactively engage parents in the education of their children. Before “blaming” parents for non-involvement, it would be worthwhile to determine how many of the following suggestions your school has tried. This list of suggestions is designed to help educators view parents as resources and partners, rather than as obstacles.
The suggestions for improving parent involvement fall into the following categories:
- improving the school’s climate so it is more inviting to parents;
- improving communication (both written and oral) with parents;
- taking proactive steps to involve parents (“reaching out”);
- providing administrative support for parent involvement.
Once again, if the principal of the school is not committed to improving parent involvement and providing supports, then the amount of parent engagement would be limited. At the end of this section we have also included an example of how parents can be proactive in contacting the principals in an effort to reduce bullying.
Reprinted with the permission of TeachSafeSchools.org.
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