Parents & Community-Building Partnerships for Learning Flashcards
Describe your approach to engaging families from diverse cultural, socioeconomic, and linguistic backgrounds.
How will you engage parents and community members as active participants in the school?
The best thing to do is to find representative individuals from different facets of the community and enlist them to become part of our school’s mission. I would have these individuals take part in various committees here at school. It’s best to have a diverse group of representatives, not just the students’ parents. Just being on the committee isn’t enough, the representatives need to have power in making decisions here at our school. These representatives are then called upon to invite other members to take part in the school. Other methods include offering community service for individuals and businesses through our school programs. Establishing regular lines of communication is also important. School newsletters and social media communication work well as lines of communication. Interactive communication is probably best though. One way to do this is through an interactive forum on the school’s website. Allow the community to ask questions, and then answer those questions. This leads to relationship building, which leads to involvement.
Summary: Enlist representatives from the community, assign representatives to committees, have representatives enlist others from their circles, offer community service, regularly communicate, and communicate in a two-way fashion.
How will you handle disagreements among parent groups (PTA/PTO) and staff?
What are some strategies you would use to get parents more involved in their children’s education?
You first need to create a safe school environment for their children. The first contact we make with parents should be positive. Schools should send out an introduction letter and have a greeting at back to school night. Then I would invite parents to be part of various school committees. I would offer parent workshops as another way to get them into the building. Parent workshops are becoming more popular. The teachers would have to be on board as well. I’d allow the teachers to run the workshops themselves. We should keep the parents well informed. Parents don’t like to be surprised with bad news. If a child is failing, I’d take steps to immediately inform the parents that their child is in danger. When communicating with parents, be sure that the information has been translated for those parents that need translation. I’d like to create an email list with the purpose of providing parents with information on academic help strategies. Parents will be given the choice to opt in for the list. I believe in offering volunteering opportunities to the parents. On the school website, I would have a parents page. Here, parents can public ask questions (permission settings activated), and administrators will respond. This create a back and forth dialogue in a transparent manner. And last but definitely not least, spotlight their kids. The best thing to do is to find different ways to showcase and spotlight their children.
Summary: Create a safe school environment, positive first contact, invitations to school committees, offer parent workshops, keep the parents informed, translate when needed, create an email group (parent help tips), parents website page, and spotlight their children.
