What Successful Schools Do to Involve Families

55 Partnership Strategies

Paula Jameson Whitney, Neal A. Glasgow

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781510701342
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Administration

From traditional forms of communication—such as open houses, parent-teacher conferences, and fundraising efforts—to hot-button topics such as bullying and discipline, this book helps educators bridge the gap between school and home.

1

Parents, Families, Teachers, and School Appreciating and Supporting Each Other

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.

—Willa A. Foste

I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.

—Vincent Van Gogh

Strategy 1: Recognize the various assumptions and myths that surround parental involvement in schools.

What the Research Says

Russell and Granville (2005), of George Street Research in Scotland, developed a report that details findings from qualitative research addressing the issue of parental involvement in the education of their children. The need for the research derived from a growing recognition of the importance of the role of parents and home–school partnerships in improving levels of achievement and attainment in schools and the overall quality of the educational experience. The Scottish Executive Organization is committed to improving the involvement of parents in their children’s education and in the work of the school itself. This research explores the level of involvement that parents currently have in different types of educational and school-related activities and aims to identify barriers to involvement so that strategies can be introduced to overcome these and ultimately improve parental involvement.

Note that the term parent is used throughout the report to refer to the wide range of individuals who are responsible for the care and upbringing of children and young people across the country. Occasionally, the report makes use of other terms, but this is where the view expressed is attributable to a particular type of caregiver only (for example, foster caregiver for asylum seekers and refugees). The specific objectives set for the research were as follows:

• To gather feedback and views from key parent stakeholder groups about their current involvement in their children’s education

• To include the opinions of groups who, in the past, have been reluctant or unable to provide appropriate feedback

• To reflect the views of parent stakeholders from all parts of Scotland and include residents in cities, towns, and rural areas

• To identify actions and recommendations that will help to improve the quality of parental involvement

Classroom Applications

There is a range of parental expectations concerning the nature of the relationship they experience with the school and the range of roles and responsibilities they expect the school to offer, with some parents committed to a closer relationship with the school and teachers than others. Most parents accept that they are required to fulfill some fundamental responsibilities, and these are generally regarded as basic expectations that schools can reasonably have of any parent. Parents also have expectations about the type of relationship they should have with the school. However, for the most part, the greatest percentage of parents currently have relatively low levels of involvement, while perceiving that what they do is all that is needed.

Additionally, in two-parent households, it is often the case that one parent is more involved than the other. This again is considered to be adequate and is the most practical approach for many families, especially if one parent is the breadwinner and the other is the homemaker or is seen as doing the majority of the parenting. There are some differences in expectations among parents from specifically targeted groups such as parents from minority ethnic backgrounds and various immigrant families.

One of biggest challenges facing us is to overcome the fixed assumptions held by the majority of parents. It is very hard for parents, who have a deeply ingrained mind-set about their responsibilities, to visualize themselves playing a more active role in schools. The goal, therefore, is to establish the key messages that are meaningful to parents that we can use in future communications in order to bring about change and establish new roles for caregivers.

The majority of parents perceive a fairly distinct boundary between the role of the home and that of the school. Parents expect the school and teachers to be the principal educators of their children while parents play a relatively minor but important supporting role.

This quote sums up many parental attitudes: “The teachers are there to teach the children … they are getting good wages and good holidays to do it and we pay our taxes … we are the parents who bathe, feed and clothe them, look after them and make sure they behave themselves” (Russell & Granville, 2005, p. 9). The average parent perceives a need for only a supportive involvement in their children’s education with principal responsibility lying with the teaching staff.

The following types of activities represent the involvement of the majority of parents:

• Ensuring that children complete their homework and helping with it when they can

• Attending parents’ night meetings at school

• Supporting their children when performing or playing sports

• Keeping track of their children’s academic progress

This relatively limited range of activities, many of which are supportive rather than active, are nonetheless considered to be involvement. As such, parental involvement means different things to different people. Moreover, the majority of parents assume that what they are currently doing is adequate, reflecting the particular needs of their own children, and that there is no requirement for more or better involvement. Many parents feel that, “You can be involved without being near the school. We are involved with their activities. We’re active parents in the home—you don’t need to go near the school” (Russell & Granville, 2005, p. 9).

This is particularly the case if their child does not seem to have any problems and the school is fulfilling the parents’ expectations. Another quote from the study supports this notion: “If you’re happy with the report card, the teachers and that your child is getting what he or she needs or expects and is doing well, why get involved? If the school is doing a good job you want to just stand back and let them get on with it” (Russell & Granville, 2005, p. 10).

In fact, some parents feel there is danger of doing too much and being overly involved. They recognize that some parents tend to dominate too much, trying to have too much control: “Too much interference from parents might rock the boat. Parents can’t expect to control everything” (Russell & Granville, 2005, p. 10). Parents acknowledge that the principle reason to contact the school would be if their child was having a problem of some sort, such as bullying. When things go wrong is the only time that parents really want to know. There is still also the assumption that the school will contact parents if there is a serious problem or issue, and for the most part this does appear to happen.

The average parent also recognizes that they have a basic responsibility to offer some level of support to their child’s learning. Indeed, parents are aware that their input at home has a positive impact on academic achievement as well as the emotional well-being of their child. In addition, parents recognize that they have some fundamental responsibilities to ensure that their child

• attends school in a fit state to learn,

• is punctual,

• is appropriately dressed and adequately equipped,

• behaves well, and

• respects the rights and interests of others in the school community.

Parental expectations about the level and type of involvement often reflect their own upbringing and experiences in schooling and the level of involvement of their own parents. A pattern of expectations is modeled through the generations. As mentioned earlier, those individuals whose own parents were not involved in school activities are less likely to perceive a need for their involvement in their own children’s education. Parents who have had a negative experience at school are also less likely to be interested in getting involved or playing an active role in school events and activities.

It is also important to note that parental expectations of the school, and what the school can feasibly do, are affected by a perception that teachers have excessive workloads and face limitations in the additional time they can offer to engage parents in the learning process or foster links between the school and home. Some parents are, therefore, sympathetic to teachers and reluctant to make any suggestion that could put greater pressure on teachers’ time.

Parents from different cultural backgrounds, such as minority ethnic communities and immigrants, seem to have differing views about the level of responsibility that the school should have. In some countries, the boundaries between the school and the home are much starker, and the relationship between the home and the school is more formal. For example, a Nigerian parent once said that Nigerian schools have a clear set of educational responsibilities in which parents are not expected to get involved—to do so would be considered interfering.

In other countries, parents are expected to be far more involved compared to the United States. For example, parents from Lithuania and Russia emphasize the importance of parental presence and assistance in many different aspects of school life, and this is considered to be a parental duty. Their involvement helps parents to become integrated into the local community.

There are also differing ideas about the limits of the school’s responsibilities. For example, some parents have issues with the school providing sex education or drug education for their children because they feel it is putting ideas into their heads. An Indian father emphasized that he would like this responsibility to be placed back in his hands.

Several parents from different cultural backgrounds in the Russell and Granville (2005) research also mentioned what they feel is a lax attitude to discipline in Scottish schools, compared to the schools in their own countries. They expected the school to play a stronger disciplinary role: “I think there is too much freedom for the kids … even if they go in ten minutes late they are just signed down but it doesn’t matter. They don’t bother. In our country if the child is late today, then the next day he will get a punishment” (Russell & Granville, 2005, p. 13).

Precautions and Possible Pitfalls

When reflecting on the role of parents in schools from an educator’s perspective, it is also necessary to examine your own expectations for parents. Teachers also have clear ideas, comfort zones, and boundaries for the roles parents play in schools. If you are really concerned with changing the parental roles in schools, you will need to expand your own paradigm on what is possible. Many teachers just don’t like dealing with parents, usually because they see parents as bringing more problems than solutions. This will need ...