One of the most important opportunities to develop strong, positive relationships with parents occurs during the days and weeks surrounding the opening of school each year–and it’s important to make the most of it!
That’s why The Parent Institute recently surveyed more the 13,000 elementary and middle school principals as well as other key leaders, asking:
What are some of the best ideas you have found for getting started on the right foot with parents as a new school year begins?
Read on to see representative survey findings below–and add your own ideas and comments as well! Read the rest of this entry »
I was surprised recently by some of the drastically different responses to a question we asked on a national survey.
We surveyed several thousand elementary and secondary school principals, superintendents, Title 1 directors, counselors and other school leaders. The question was: “What are your greatest concerns about parent involvement today?”
Many were very pleased with the involvement they have and said they want to do more to help parents build their parenting skills. Here are some typical comments: Read the rest of this entry »
What is the best parent involvement practice you know?
For the last few years, I have been writing a column titled “Parents and Schools” for Principal magazine, which is published by the National Association of Elementary School Principals. The editor has asked me to write about some of the “best parent involvement practices” that I have found for their September/October 2007 issue.
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As I was gathering all of my ideas and research together, I thought it would be a great idea to include some of your best parent involvement practices. They can be for any level—preschool through high school. I will select a few of the best ideas and feature them in my article, giving you full credit, of course. So be sure to click on “Leave a Reply” at the end of this blog and tell me about your best idea.
Since this blog is all about sharing great parent involvement ideas, here is one of mine: Read the rest of this entry »
Why do some educators feel parent involvement is so important and others do not? This is the question that occupies my mind lately. I’ve recently shared with you some of the surprisingly negative responses we received from our latest national survey where we asked educators:
“What are your greatest concerns about parent involvement today?”
However, there were many educators who responded with positive, thoughtful, often glowing comments. They talked about how good parent involvement is in their schools, how important it is and how they want to do even more to get parents involved.
I’m still thinking about some of those negative responses we received to our recent national survey question, “What are your greatest concerns about parent involvement today?”
Many school leaders had some pretty harsh things to say about parent involvement in their schools. These are elementary and secondary principals, superintendents, parent involvement coordinators, federal program directors and school counselors.
They made parent involvement sound like a lost cause. Many said parents don’t care and efforts to involve them aren’t worth the aggravation to the school. Parents are irresponsible; they use the school as a childcare service, don’t show up for school events or even for conferences. They said parents are openly disrespectful of teachers and administrators. They want special treatment for their children and, above all, they don’t want anything negative to happen to their kids—they protect their children from having to accept responsibility for their behavior. Read the rest of this entry »
As a lifelong educator, parent and now grandparent, I find it fascinating to read other educators’ views about life in today’s schools. Recently, my colleagues and I spent weeks reviewing the data from our latest national survey of education leaders. We have been conducting this survey for many years and it has always provided us with great insights into the challenges facing today’s educator. But this year, I was caught off guard by some of the responses we received. We asked educators:
“What are your greatest concerns about parent involvement today?”
Over 5,000 school leaders anonymously answered this question and their answers ranged from insightful and thought provoking to pessimistic and discouraging. Quite frankly, a few of the comments even shocked me. I’ve listed some of the most disturbing ones below … and remember, these are educators sharing their views on parent involvement: Read the rest of this entry »
It would be an understatement to say that I am delighted with the response to the first entry in this new blog a few days ago!
With thoughtful responses already from readers at all school levels throughout the U.S., from Saskatchewan, Canada, and from Bhopal, India, it is clear that there is a lot of interest in parent involvement. The ideas and resources shared so far have already produced an explosion of ideas in my own mind and have helped me see some important issues more clearly.
I am seeing trends in your responses that will guide the conversations we will have through the forum of this blog:
In 1962 when I walked into my first classroom as an English and journalism teacher, I never thought I would end up focusing on parent involvement, let alone starting an organization—The Parent Institute—devoted to it. But now, almost 45 years later, it all makes sense …