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Slide Notes
Thank you for coming tonight! I am so glad you are here! It is wonderful to see many new and many familiar faces.
As you know, I wanted to hold this meeting to address how your participation and input in your child's education can strengthen their learning throughout this school year. I hope the opportunities outlined throughout this presentation provide clarity and inspire you to share your valuable input and experiences with our school and classroom.
As you know, I wanted to hold this meeting to address how your participation and input in your child's education can strengthen their learning throughout this school year. I hope the opportunities outlined throughout this presentation provide clarity and inspire you to share your valuable input and experiences with our school and classroom.
EDES640 Parent and Community Engagement Plan
Published on Dec 09, 2015
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MORE DECKS TO EXPLORE
PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Parent and Community Engagement Plan
the importance of parental and community involvement at Pioneer!
Thank you for coming tonight! I am so glad you are here! It is wonderful to see many new and many familiar faces.
As you know, I wanted to hold this meeting to address how your participation and input in your child's education can strengthen their learning throughout this school year. I hope the opportunities outlined throughout this presentation provide clarity and inspire you to share your valuable input and experiences with our school and classroom.
As you know, I wanted to hold this meeting to address how your participation and input in your child's education can strengthen their learning throughout this school year. I hope the opportunities outlined throughout this presentation provide clarity and inspire you to share your valuable input and experiences with our school and classroom.
outline:
- six types of involvement
- What's in it for you?
- ideas for participation
-conclusion
We will first discuss the six types of community and parent involvement, as outlined by experts; then we will go over incentives for your involvement; and finally, we will open up the discussion for a brainstorming activity. Throughout the presentation, please think about how each step can apply (or will not apply) to your lives. At the end, we will share ideas for involvement and participation.
Our most valuable resource: our community
We are all here with a common purpose: we value our children's education. The real question we will be addressing tonight is how we can help, as a community, to improve learning for our students.
At Pioneer, we have a unique contingent of resources at our fingertips. Because we are a bilingual school, the backgrounds, cultures, and relationships your children bring to the school are often already more apparent than at regular public schools. For example, I remember when Ms. Alvarez recently brought a dulce de leche cake to celebrate the life of Eduardo's grandmother. We were able to communicate with Eduardo's extended family in Spanish, and embraced their needs. It truly felt like the Pioneer community was involved in supporting, grieving, and celebrating this life! We all can be a part of such experiences both in and out of the classroom.
Image: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5081f9c284ae02360227c79e/52b15b42e4b0...
At Pioneer, we have a unique contingent of resources at our fingertips. Because we are a bilingual school, the backgrounds, cultures, and relationships your children bring to the school are often already more apparent than at regular public schools. For example, I remember when Ms. Alvarez recently brought a dulce de leche cake to celebrate the life of Eduardo's grandmother. We were able to communicate with Eduardo's extended family in Spanish, and embraced their needs. It truly felt like the Pioneer community was involved in supporting, grieving, and celebrating this life! We all can be a part of such experiences both in and out of the classroom.
Image: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5081f9c284ae02360227c79e/52b15b42e4b0...
1. parenting supports
We want to develop a community engagement plan focusing on providing equal opportunities for all of our students to learn both in and out of the classroom. As such, the first target for involvement has to do with creating an environment in all of your homes where students learning can continue. Parenting, or helping all families "establish home environments to support children as students" is our first goal (Epstein, Sanders, Simon, Salinas, Jansorn, & VanVoorhis, 2009, p. 18). Providing resources such as workshops and videotapes about childrearing specific to each grade level, parent education, GED training courses, and information about health, nutrition, and transportation assistance are just a few examples of how we can begin this portion of involvement.
"2. Communication about school programs and student progress means two-way, three-way, and many-way channels of communication that connect schools, families, students, and the community.
Next, and very importantly, we will work on communication. We would like to design effective means to communicate from school-to-home and home-to-school regarding school programs and student progress. Our ideas begin with holding conferences with parents either at school, or in their homes, providing language translators when needed, keeping a regular schedule of notices, and sending students home with a weekly or monthly school work folder that provides insight into what the student is learning, and how the student is performing (Epstein etal, 2009, p. 14). We hope establishing clearer lines of communication will help teachers, parents, and students be more aware and involved throughout the school year.
Photo by J_O_I_D
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Third, we hope to inspire volunteering amongst community and family members both in and outside of the classroom. Recruiting will be widespread; we want all families to know that they are welcome. Schedules for volunteering can be flexible to ensure even working parents are able to participate. Volunteer work can involve peer-led and teacher-led training to match your valuable time and irreplaceable talents with the needs of the school. These opportunities support student, school goals and progress, and can be completed in or outside of the school.
4. Learning at home
parent and student
Next, in an effort to provide you with resources to help your children at home, we would like to establish the "learning at home" involvement target. Information and ideas about how to help students with homework and other curriculum-related activities, decisions, and planning will be included in materials (Epstein etal., 2009, p. 14). Family games, activities, and planning for college information will also be available.
Photo by Alistair Hamill
5. Decision Making
The fifth element of involvement we will be focusing on is decision making. We know that often the school and the decision made in the school may seem like a separate entity operating without your involvement. We would like to change this. By including you in school decisions, we hope to develop community and parent leaders who can represent the opinions of the community. We hope to create a network that links all families with representatives who can help explain important decisions, clarify issues, and discuss opinions.
6. COMMUNITY MEANS NOT ONLY THE NEIGHBORHOODS WHERE STUDENTS' HOMES AND SCHOOLS ARE LOCATED, BUT ALSO NEIGHBORHOODS THAT INFLUENCE STUDENT LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
Finally, we hope to collaborate with the local community of Lafayette to come up with the best means to involve both parents and community members in the education of our children. In doing so, we hope to provide more information about community programs that may be available for students and families, provide information about funding and resource opportunities, and ensure equity of opportunities amongst families and students (Epstein etal., 2009, p. 15).
WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU?
So, what's in it for you? When communities and parents become more involved in their child's education by taking an active role in decision making, the education process, and goal setting, everyone benefits. Specifically, through these targeted steps of involvement, we believe that you will benefit from a heightened sense of awareness, a greater community focus, more connections, a better understanding of the school and teachers' work, knowing how to support your children throughout their learning, a plethora of resources, and in the end, you will develop skills and a network of support helpful for your personal and professional lives (Epstein etal., 2009, p. 16).
Photo by opensourceway
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Lastly, using the six steps as a framework for discussion, let's brainstorm a few ideas for involvement for each topic. For example, if you have a skill set particularly applicable to a topic, please share your abilities and ideas!
Image: http://blog.songcastmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/brainstorm1.jpg
Image: http://blog.songcastmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/brainstorm1.jpg
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We know we have taken you away from the precious free time many of you have and want to thank you again for your interest and involvement. We are looking forward to our best school year yet, and your participation will be fundamental to making this happen. We will be sending home a summary of the discussion from tonight's meeting in the upcoming week. Please, if you have any questions, my door is always open.
Resources
- Epstein, J. L., Sanders, M. G., Simon, B. S., Salinas, K. C., Jansorn, N. R., & Voorhis, F. L. (2009). A comprehensive framework. School, family, and community partnerships: Your handbook for action (pp. 5-39). Thousand Oaks, Ca: Corwin Press. Retrieved from http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/6799_epstein_ch_1.pdf
