The Vital Importance of Empowering “Parent Voice”

In the school setting we strive to engage students and teachers in the collaborative learning process. Teacher voice is imperative as they play an integral role in the overall educational experience. Students, as the primary learners in our schools, need “voice” and “choice” as part of the comprehensive learning environment. So parents, who are just as important to the educational formula, are sometimes out of the equation. Sitting on the sidelines, parents can, at times feel isolated and ostracized from the very experience that should serve as an all-inclusive organizational structure. You can guarantee parent engagement and build capacity by sharing the decision making process with your parents. Engage, encourage, and entrust your parents and the rest will become history.

In Beyond the Bake Sale, Henderson and Mapp explain the importance of “Sharing Power” in Chapter 8. They identified three practices that will help schools further engage and involve parents in the educational process:

1.      Provide workable mechanisms for teachers, parents, and students to voice their ideas and concerns, and to take part in decision making.

2.       Build a broad base of involvement by increasing families’ political knowledge and skills, and their connections to other parents and people in the community.

3.       Strengthen families’ links with community organizations and resources.

In reflecting on the practices in my own school, I can share some of the things we are doing to include parents in the voice, sharing, decision making process.

All-School Leadership Team: Working to include parents on this team will offer greater “voice” to your parent community. This team or committee is the group that makes the “BIG” decisions for the building. We call this our BIG Committee (Building Improvement Group).  We meet monthly. Parents share their insight, perspectives, and knowledge on the multiple topics that we discuss. Building-wide decisions are affirmed with this BIG Committee. We set building policy, so it is vital that we have parent voice. In preparing for the upcoming school year this committee set building policy for dress code, BYOD, and back packs. This committee is also responsible for finalizing our School Improvement Plan.

School Improvement Plan: Engage parents as part of this team. Allow parents to help you shape your school’s improvement plan. Their voice is important and they can share another necessary perspective as you discuss and develop the school’s plan.

Celebrations: Parents want to be included in this facet of the school day too. Enlist parent leaders to plan, organize, and facilitate school-wide student celebrations in academics, achievement, and behavior.

Parent Panels: This forum is an excellent way for your parents to share their perspective, roles, and involvement with school visitors. When you have visiting groups, work to host a Parent Panel. This way your parents can provide the parent perspective. We use this format when schools come to visit and during our Summer Survival Series.

PTO/PTA: Use this important parent committee to offer and empower parent voice in a variety of decision making opportunities. Our PTO is responsible for all fund raising and teacher grants. They also focus on technology support. They play a major role in improving, implementing, and meeting the technology needs of both students and staff. Do not take this facet of parent leadership lightly. This is an instrumental need within each school setting.

Parent Development: Engage your parent leaders in providing parent professional development throughout the school year. Every parent has potential to serve the school in one facet or another. Seek out parents to serve in this capacity. Our Parent Involvement Team coordinates our Parenting 101, Summer Survival Series, Round-Table Discussions, Book Discussions, and parent volunteerism.

Within the above identified structures, parents can serve as leaders, learners, and liaisons.  This is important as this allows for greater parent participation and involvement in our schools. The examples I noted are merely the tip of the proverbial “iceberg”. There are so many more ways in which parents can become part of the shared leadership in our schools today. I look forward to learning how you are increasing parent engagement in your school.

As I continue this journey, I want to thank Joe Mazza and my Beyond the Bake Sale Voxer book study cohort for their support, encouragement, and teaching me new ways to engage my parents at Francis Howell Middle!

If you are interested in empowering your parents or looking for ways to improve school to home relationships, I strongly urge you to read Henderson and Mapp’s Beyond the Bake Sale then you can empower your school to move “beyond” where you are today!

Building Relationships: The Non-Negotiable

Before anything else you must build relationships. We often here these words spoken during a key-note speech, conference breakout sessions, and even during: our own presentations with staff, parents, and the community. I am a firm believer in “relationships first” as a belief system. We presently focus on this

Practice with our students and staff. It is now time to take this practice one step further and “completely” include our parents in this business we call Relationship Building.

In their book Beyond the Bake Sale, Anne Henderson and Karen Mapp have identified four Core Beliefs that serve as the “foundations” to build strong relationships in engaging parents within your school community.

1.     All parents have dreams for their children and want the best for them.

2.     All parents have the capacity to support their children’s learning.

3.     Parents and school staff should be equal partners.

4.     The responsibility for building partnerships between school and home rest primarily with school staff, especially school leaders.

In reflecting on these core beliefs:

Core Belief #1: As a school community it is imperative that we honor the “dream” that parents have for their children. We need to nurture this process and help the parents help their children. We must also remember that our parents also want what is best for third children – and they rely upon the school for this support. Our support can help parents expand fine tune and enhance those dreams!

Core Value #2: We must be cognizant of this capacity within the parents. More importantly, we must support the parents who have the desire, but cannot fully support their child’s learning. This is when we provide additional resources for the student and parent. This includes after school support, off-site tutoring, and off-site parent education meetings.

Core Belief #3: At all times we must be aware of the equal partnership our parents play in the school setting. We must utilize those resources that our parents bring to the school.  Once our parents realize and understand that we want to be equal partners in this role and journey, the possibilities will become limitless as to the resources, ideas, support, and understanding of our joint roles in education.

Core Belief #4: As the primary source for our students and parents, the school needs to take this responsibility seriously. The school must first reach out to the parents. Not just once, but on a continual basis. Always available our school leaders (teachers, support staff, and administration) must demonstrate, through communication, our desire to have a positive relationship with the parents.  When parents see the Administrators and teachers acting on this Core Belief, they will truly see the relationships beginning to form. Get to know your parents by name. Once I know the parents - I am a firm believer in calling them by their first names (if they are comfortable with this).  I truly enjoy all of our school functions because I get to visit with my “old’ friends and get to meet my ‘new” friends.

Henderson and Mapp, further explain via the Element of Trust table that there are four key elements: Respect, Competence, Integrity, and Personal Regard. They also note that there is a three-part joining process.

This is my vision for this process for Francis Howell Middle School:

1.     Welcome Parents into the School:

Overtly invite parents to join is in all facets of the school community. This will include membership in and leadership roles in our PTO, Parent Involvement Team (PIT), and Building Improvement Group (BIG). Our PIT team will work to revise our Parent Talent Pool inventory and then we can use this to generate a volunteer lists for school projects, activities, and class events. Use all available resources to communicate with parents (traditional, electronic, and Social Media). Invite parent groups to “tour the school”. We presently do this for outside groups and other schools. We need to provide this opportunity for our parents – letting them see the school “in action”. We cannot assume that the “Flyer, eNews, Newsletter or Tweet will guarantee parent involvement or participation. We must take the appropriate steps to make sure they know they are invited and welcome.

2.     Honor their participation

This means taking time to recognize the work of our parents (Going beyond the end of the year “Volunteer Reception”). Instead I will include the names of our volunteers in our monthly newsletter, make personal calls to give “thanks”, and personally thank them when I see them at school events and functions. Even a written thank you note will show how much we appreciate their involvement.

3.     Connect with parents through a focus on the children and their learning:

In using this as our primary focus, parents will be included in our committee structure and process. We presently have parents on our BIG Committee (which is the building leadership team, but we need to have parents on our: School Improvement Plan (SIP) writing team, curriculum team. This also includes educating our parents on the curriculum process, the core curriculum sequencing, and the inclusion of high school credits at the middle school. From the onset parents need to know what to expect at the middle level and what they need to do to prepare for high school and beyond.

As you consider your next moves in furthering the development of parent and family engagement in your schools, let me know the progress with your. I would love to celebrate with you as you continue this journey to greater parent involvement in your school.