Parental Involvement In School

Parents are the first nurturers, socialisers and educators of their children (Berger, 2000) and so the home is considered a critical educational institution. There is no topic in education on which there is greater agreement than the need for parental involvement (Epstein, et al., 2002). Jeynes (2005) and many other researchers have indicated a significant relationship between parental involvement and students’ overall academic achievement. This is a fact!

Epstein and her colleagues found that teachers, administrators, and parents are more than willing to work together in positive ways to increase student academic achievement; (Epstein, et al., 2002) therefore, school-family-community partnership is of utmost importance.

Michigan Department of Education (2002), reported that the earlier the parents get involved, the more powerful the effects are. However, it is a known fact that parental involvement tends to decline across the grades. No matter what the reasons are for the decline in parental involvement, schools need to make conscious efforts to forge successful partnerships with parents.

Joyce Epstein, a leader in parent-teacher-school research, has identified several types of parental involvement strategies that schools can use to involve parents in their children’s learning.

Parenting

Schools should assist families with parenting skills and set home conditions to support children as students. Parents, in turn, ought to assist schools in better understanding families. Activities initiated by the school may include:

• videotapes, computerised phone messages on parenting and child development at each age and grade level;
• courses, workshops or seminars to enable the education and training of parents such as family literacy, home-based interactive activities or training programmes;
• family support programmes to assist families with health, nutrition, and parenting skills;
• home visits or neighbourhood meetings to help families understand the school-home relationship.

Suggestion for parents: Participate in workshops organised by your child’s school. You can also suggest to your child’s school to organise workshops on relevant and beneficial topics.

Communicating

Facilitating effective communication between school and home is vital to monitor students’ progress. Activities relating to communicative skills include:

• conferences for all parents at least once a year;
• language translators to assist families if the need arises;
• folders of student work sent home weekly or monthly for parents to review and comment;
• a parent’s day when progress reports are collected with teachers updating parents on the progress of the child;
• regularly send out notices and make phone calls to keep in contact with parents;
• clear information on all school policies, programs, reforms, assessments, and transitions.

Suggestion to parents: Be sure to meet your child’s teacher periodically to discuss your child’s progress at school. Keep in touch with your child’s school through meetings, emails and others.

Volunteering

Invite parents and guardians to volunteer their services, time or resources to support the school and the children. Volunteer activities can include:

• parent patrols to increase school safety;
• parents as officials or committee members when annual sports or concerts are held;
• parents offering their services in their area of expertise during workshops, talks or seminars.

Suggestion to parents: Be a volunteer at your child’s school. Your presence at school makes a big difference to your child

Decision making

Include families as participants in school decisions and develop parent leaders and representatives. Activities include:

• being actively involved in parent-teacher meetings, advisory councils or other committees related to curriculum, safety, etc;
• networking to link all families with parent representatives;
• Independently advocating groups to lobby for school reform and improvements.

Suggestion to parents: Make time to attend parent-teacher meets at your child’s school. Take on leadership roles in the committee and make a difference.