Collaborating+With+Parents+and+Communities

Overview:
Collaboration between schools and families is extremely important to students’ success for many reasons. Research shows that parent involvement greatly increases the chances for a student’s academic success. Increased parent involvement also generally creates a more positive climate within the school. Additionally, contact with families provides teachers with a better understanding of their students’ backgrounds and challenges they may be facing at home.

It is important for educators to help parents understand that they do not have to know how to teach their children or even how to do everything their students are doing. The most important thing for them to do is to encourage their children’s good study habits and develop a basic understanding of where their child should be at each grade level. What goes on in a student’s home is what is going to fill the gaps in what that student is missing from their educational experience in the classroom.

There are many ways to involve parents in the classroom. Parents can be asked and encouraged to volunteer in the classroom. They can be asked to come and speak to the class as “experts.” Community meetings can be held which would include all parents. There are also various things teachers should do to encourage open lines of communication with families. Teachers can send home frequent, informal progress reports so parents are not surprised at report card time. Teachers should attempt to communicate with parents about positive aspects of their children early on. This will reduce the possibility of the first interaction with a family being stemming from a problem which could negatively impact all future communications.



**Unity** I dreamed I stood in a studio and watched two sculptors there. The clay they used was a young child’s mind, and they fashioned it with care. One was a teacher-the tools she used were books and music and art.

The other, a parent, used a guiding hand and a gentle and loving heart. Day after day, the teacher toiled with a touch that was deft and sure. While the parent labored by his side, polishing and smoothing it over. And when, at last, their work was done, they were proud of what they had wrought. For the thing they had molded into the child could be neither sold nor bought. Yet each agreed that they would have failed, if each had worked alone. For behind the parent stood the school, and behind the teacher, the home. Author Unknown

The following links provide several resources to assist teachers in developing more knowledge related to serving migrant children and families:


 * Children's Literature
 * Research
 * Websites, Videos, Other Research