Parent Involvement...

I think getting the students excited about after school or in school "activities" will get the parents more involved too. If the child makes a big deal about something going on at school and how they would really like to go, maybe parents will consider. Also, I recommend deciding ahead of time when these activities will take place so parents can take time off of work if need be. Parent involvement is such a hard subject to speak on because there isn't much we as teachers can do! Best of luck!

I think there are many great ideas of how to get students involved. I currently work in a school that has lots of parent involvement. However, I worked in a school for many years where parent involvement was a problem. I found that the core problem was that parents were scared and did not feel as if they "fit in" at school with teachers. It took lots of conversations and reaching out to make them become more comfortable. It was a slow process, but they eventually felt welcome.

As I read the concerns posted about family involvement, I noticed that many of us have something in common. I wonder, are any of you teaching in a title 1 schoo? What population of students do you have? Our school seems to have the same problem. We are a Reading First school, therefore, once a month we have parent involvement activities. These activities are different strategies or games that parents can do with their child to increase reading skills for grades 1-4. Sadly, only about 5 families attend. Food is always offered because of the time of day we have the meetings.

I feel getting parents involved is tough. I am a preschool teacher and I send out a monthly news letter with the events. I send it to try to give parents enough notice to attend our events. Majority of the families are low income so it is hard for them to take a day off. We have started a parent & teacher comity which allows the parents to give there input on events. Since we have started the meetings each time we get one more parent. We have made the meetings after hours to give them a chance to attend. I hope as the meetings go on we will get more involvement and input from parents. I think little things like that will help to get more involvement.

Our school does parent surveys at the beginning of each year. We do this to see what areas parents might need help. One of the parents concerns was being able to come to school after hours for meetings and bringing their child(ren). So, we decided to have some teachers provided activities for school age children while parents attend meetings. That worked one time.

At our school, we also honor our parent volunteers at the end of the year. We have an all school assembly and our principal honors them with recognition and a little gift. We also have a day where they come in for a special "reception." We generally have coffee/tea and cookies. When the teachers don't have their students they can stop in and visit and say thanks.

I agree that in today’s society there is a lack of parental involvement. I do agree with Katie’s comment that parents in the current economy are getting really busy with their jobs, and other children, along with other priorities. I feel this is not an excuse though; parents should make it a point to show their children education is one of the most important things in their lives. Once children see that parents are involved and concerned with their schooling and future the kids will take on those feelings. Unfortunately, I think some parents do not value their child's education as importantly as they should. I find this especially apparent in the class of 9th grade repeating students I currently have. I hear many horror stories directly from my students about their home lives when the subject comes up. I also teach 7th grade math and I am finding even less parental involvement as the age in the students increase from elementary to middle and junior high schools. Since the year started off, I have had maybe 5 total 7th grade parents out of 80 contact me to show an interest in their child’s grades or feelings. This disappoints me quite a bit. As a great author Jeffery Kottler stated, communicating with parents and guardians is an ongoing activity (Kottler, Zehm, and Kottler 2005).I have always believed as a teacher to keep communicating with parents as open as possible through ways that parents can keep up with easiest. I have done so thus far through monthly newsletters, 5 week signed progress reports, a website in which I update every day, and phone calls both positive and negative. I really make it a point to keep my website full of resources such as the nightly homework, important dates, study guides, games, and other various tips for success. I really enjoyed this idea because I know technology is up and coming and many parents are using computers with their jobs these days so my hope was to keep them informed through this website. I am finding that not as many of my students or parents are using this as much as I would like. I find this frustrating because I put so much time and effort it keeping it up to date. Does anyone have any advice in other ways to get feedback either positive or negative? I would just like to hear more from my parents to know they are supporting my students. I would appreciate any comments.

Resources
Kottler, J. A., Zehm, S. J., & Kottler, E. (2005). On being a teacher. The human dimension (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

I agree that in today’s society there is a lack of parental involvement. I do agree with Katie’s comment that parents in the current economy are getting really busy with their jobs, and other children, along with other priorities. I feel this is not an excuse though; parents should make it a point to show their children education is one of the most important things in their lives. Once children see that parents are involved and concerned with their schooling and future the kids will take on those feelings. Unfortunately, I think some parents do not value their child's education as importantly as they should. I find this especially apparent in the class of 9th grade repeating students I currently have. I hear many horror stories directly from my students about their home lives when the subject comes up. I also teach 7th grade math and I am finding even less parental involvement as the age in the students increase from elementary to middle and junior high schools. Since the year started off, I have had maybe 5 total 7th grade parents out of 80 contact me to show an interest in their child’s grades or feelings. This disappoints me quite a bit. As a great author Jeffery Kottler stated, communicating with parents and guardians is an ongoing activity (Kottler, Zehm, and Kottler 2005).I have always believed as a teacher to keep communicating with parents as open as possible through ways that parents can keep up with easiest. I have done so thus far through monthly newsletters, 5 week signed progress reports, a website in which I update every day, and phone calls both positive and negative. I really make it a point to keep my website full of resources such as the nightly homework, important dates, study guides, games, and other various tips for success. I really enjoyed this idea because I know technology is up and coming and many parents are using computers with their jobs these days so my hope was to keep them informed through this website. I am finding that not as many of my students or parents are using this as much as I would like. I find this frustrating because I put so much time and effort it keeping it up to date. Does anyone have any advice in other ways to get feedback either positive or negative? I would just like to hear more from my parents to know they are supporting my students. I would appreciate any comments.

Resources
Kottler, J. A., Zehm, S. J., & Kottler, E. (2005). On being a teacher. The human dimension (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

I dont think parents dont want to be involved, I just think many parents work and just dont have the time. Many parents are single parents and the sole provider of their households. Try sending activities home that the child and the parent can work on.