Developing A Stronger Home And School Partnership

Parent and Community involvement does not occur overnight. I feel that schools must make parent and community involvement a priority, valuing and accepting each other’s differences. Schools, families and communities must work together to support all students in a learning environment to ensure every student is a successful learner. Positive family and school involvement fosters a partnership among my school encouraging students to reach their highest potential academically and in life. Parent and community involvement does not mean stay-at-home mothers coming to school to help as needed, or a businessman stopping by to see events occurring on campus. The role of school, family and community involvement is a partnership incorporating goal-oriented activities for all grade levels linked to academic success and student growth.

I became an educator as a way to share the knowledge and experiences I have formally and informally learned throughout my life. In order for teachers to be successful transmitters of knowledge, it is imperative for them to have excellent communication skills with all the school’s stakeholders. To engage in meaningful multicultural practice, families and schools need to operate as interdependent, mutually respectful partners (Ramsey, 2004, p. 46). How they express themselves, as well as how they treat other

Probably one of the most important issues when it comes to Family/Community Partnership is trying to get the families/community involved in what we are doing. By engaging parents, it will help us to see what we are lacking and what we need to do in order to have our families fully engaged. I feel that if our families/communities are not engaged in our program then we need to reevaluate in order to encourage their participation. By reevaluating our program we can further access what we need to work on. If parents/communities feel that they are not valued as part of our team, they won’t engage in our program. Both the parents and the community play a big role in the education of our children. Parents are their first teachers and the communities have valuable resources for the children.

Gloria Ladson-Billings spent time observing teachers in public schools that were located in predominately low-socioeconomic school districts to figure out what makes them successful with typically low performing students. Some of the things she observed are all the teachers “shared pride in and commitment to their profession and had an underlying belief that all children could be successful” (learnnc). Furthermore, these teachers established trusting relationships with their students that allowed the students to take responsibility for their own learning. Lastly, these teachers also went beyond the classroom to show support for their students such as attending community events. These observations led Ladson-Billings to realize that in order for “teachers to use culturally relevant pedagogy successfully, they must also show respect for students, and understand the need for the students to operate in the dual worlds of their home community and the

I teach in the Westside Consolidated Number Five School District in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The school district is a consolidation of three small rural town school districts Bono, Egypt, and Cash, Arkansas in 1968. I met with my mentor Mr. Scott Gaunt the school district superintendent on January 18, 2017 between meetings with district leaders and countywide superintendents. We met and discussed the community relations plan and identified the two most important issues for our district as identified in the poll by the Phi Delta Kappan and the Gallop poll. The issues were the lack of financial support for the school district to provide an adequate education for students and the testing and regulations imposed on school districts that lower educational time for students while in school.

Busch Middle School of Character had a wonderful sense of community, each student, instructor, and family, made sure they were doing their part. I believe it’s important for educators to understand the needs of the families and community of their students because the more resources the better. When schools actively involve parents

Understanding the importance of a family-school partnership is essential in order for school districts and families with children to grow and strive. If an imbalance occurs within any of the various parts that play a key role, difficulties will rise to the surface. Several of these roles include: communication, decision making, volunteering, and learning and parenting at home. All of these factors must work together in order to create a successful school environment in which children are able to learn and strive. When a school is successful in fulfilling each of these roles, there are several benefits. These benefits include: better positive attitudes toward school, higher achievements, better attendance, higher graduation rates, an increase in enrollment rates in post-secondary education, and overall better schools to attend (University of West Virginia).

Many parents especially the immigrant parents are not familiar with the educational programs in their student’s school or what teachers require from their students. Grand City needs to remember that this is a valuable resource in order to have a true partnership between schools and families. Therefore, creating this partnership with parents especially around academics will improve student achievement (Fullan,

The article Involvement or Engagement by Larry Farlazzo focuses on how to engage families, the school and the community to work together to promote both student and parent success within the school and the community. The article began with discussing the different between parent involvement and engagement. Larry Farlazzo (2011) states “A school striving for family involvement often leads with its mouth—identifying projects, needs, and goals and then telling parents how they can contribute. A school striving for parent engagement, on the other hand, tends to lead with its ears—listening to what parents think, dream, and worry about. The goal of family engagement is not to serve clients but to gain partners”. It’s important to understand the

All three articles stated that the impact of the community has a positive influence on the school and the academic achievement of the students. “Because of these multiple influences, schools need to attend to school, family, and community context and develop programs and practices that enable parents and community partners to help students reach school goals for high achievement and school success.” (Epstein, 1997) Article 1.1 focuses on the overlapping components of partnership which include, school, family, and community. Article 1.2 focuses mainly on the school and the community. Article 1.3 focuses on strong parental involvement. Although all three articles had a different focus, it is very clear that it takes collaboration amongst the school, the family, and the community to promote a positive environment for students be successful

Although it is important for families to be involved with their child’s school, school personnel should also strive to create a positive interaction with families of students. Carl Dunst (2002) states that school and parent collaboration is necessary, and if schools take on a more family-centered approach, it will help create a supportive environment and help to strengthen a family’s capacity to enhance and promote a child’s development and learning.

With increasing administra-tive and teaching responsibilities, school staff had little time to find community services that would help an in-dividual student or to find community programs to aug-ment classroom curriculum. Diminishing family involve-ment and communication with parents were additional challenges. With the advent of the FRYSC program, schools now have someone in a unique, flexible role who can build and nurture those family and community partnerships. To help in this task, every Family Re-source Center or Youth Services Center has an advisory council made up of parent, community and school rep-resentatives, thus ensuring that FRYSCs will always be linked to each one of

School improvement is transformation. It is one of the most important actions of a school. It is a process that schools must use with fidelity to ensure that at all students are given the opportunity to perform and achieve at exemplary levels. School improvement is vital to schools and it is a process that cannot be done in isolation. It requires team work, collaboration, and constant analysis of data and setting of goals. School improvement goals focus on how to meet the needs of students. Addressing the educational needs, funding, and achievement gaps between subgroups is collaborative effort involves everyone that has a vested interest in the schools. These basic measures set the foundation for improvement. And so, if it is the

(3) Current state of teacher preparation for family engagement, (4) Teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards family engagement, and (5) Best practices for teacher preparation. Following the literature review, the summary at the end of the chapter will propose the need for the study and possible research questions to guide the study.

In some instances, literature which highlights a particular form of community school may also be focused on a particular agenda, and therefore, not necessarily represent all the characteristics of school-community partnerships (Valli, Stefanski, & Jacobson, 2014). Family and interagency collaborations promote the coordination of service delivery including educational, health, and social services for families and students. Full-service schools deliver school-based services, focusing on strengthening support networks (Valli, Stefanski, & Jacobson, 2014).