Family Involvement

Culture and Community

"As a parent I want to know my child's school vision"

Parent involvement is a key aspect to a successful school culture and community.  Without parent’s involvement, school community could not be successful.   Young adolescents need the participation and guidance not just from educators and the school environment, but from their families as well.

Family structure has changed over the past few years.  There are more students coming from single parents, same sex marriages and relationships and alternative guardianship families than ever before.  Families are an integral part of the school environment and their voices are important to the foundation of understanding our students.

It the reason why involvement of families in Parent Teacher Associations, IEP meetings, extracurricular activities and educational goals are so instrumental in creating a warm and inviting atmosphere for our students.

As example, in my school we have the School Leadership Team.  This team is comprised of not only the administrators and educators, but parents as well.  While on the SL Team, families voices are heard and their input is added into the daily, weekly and monthly information that is distributed to the school.  Their thoughts on where they think their children should be and how to make a school environment that is communicative, understanding, nurturing and caring is merged into school curricula and organizational structures.

Different culture backgrounds and ethnicities are taken into account when the school calendar is developed and when programs are implemented.  Communications is the key to fostering a well-developed school environment and student population.

Without family involvement, there is no reinforcement of the mission, principles, goals or vision of the school. As I heard once before at an SLT meeting, "school is more than just learning literacy, math, science and social studies".  Family involvement makes a failing school, successful as in the video above entitled "Parent Involvement Contributes to Results" about the Parks Middle School in Atlanta.