Rationale: Parental involvement in students= education is imperative. Increased parental, business, and community involvement provides students with resources schools cannot afford or otherwise provide. Increased involvement helps balance the curriculum and create a positive school environment welcoming to students and the community. It bridges gaps between school and the rest of the adolescents' world.
Parents need to feel involved in their child's education just as adolescents need to feel involved in their own education. Epstein (1992) offers six goals for fostering greater parental involvement in schools:
1) Basic obligation of family - families need to be assisted by the most effective forms of communication (TV, tapes, newsletters, etc.)
2) Basic obligation of schools - concerns and needs of families MUST be listened to and heard.
3) Involvement at school - schools need to be flexible enough to include working parents.
4) Involvement in learning activities at home - more guidance and support of parents helping at home is needed. An obvious oversight seems to be communication of standards regarding homework.
5) Involvement is decision making, governance, and advocacy - to encourage real and meaningful input, schools need to open this process to all segments of the community, not just those with the most time and energy to spend on school affairs.
6) Collaboration with community organizations - schools can assist in networking parents with available support services and cultural events.
Kochan (1992) offers several benefits of connecting school, home and community:
- Parents will be more informed of students' academics, behavior, etc.
- Avoids breakdown in communication that often occurs between middle school students and their parents.
- Provides adolescents with interactions with a variety of adults other than teachers and parents.
- Helps foster respect for diversity and teaches respect for people of all ages, occupations, roles, etc.
- Parents, community, business partnerships can be involved in planning activities, which gives them a vested interest and demonstrates their care, concern to students.
-Helps students learn to be part of the larger social system and connect to their communities.
Community involvement gives students an opportunity to extend learning beyond the school walls, and an opportunity to build self-esteem and a sense of civic responsibility (Ames & Miller, 1994, p. 17).
Families reengaged in the education of young adolescents is a goal listed for exemplary middle schools in the Carnegie Report.
From (Johnson, 1990) regarding middle schools dedicated to the education of young adolescents:
- focus on school practices that affect family life rather than make judgments about what should be normal behavior
- conduct family impact assessment of programs and curriculum, rules, practices, and policies
- focus a portion of each faculty meeting on student and family needs
- involve parent advisory groups in communicating family issues and needs to the faculty
Stevenson (1992) stresses several important points:
- parents can extend a team's constructive influence on students through the use of parents' networks, a parent advisory committee, a newsletter and an organized means of communicating with all parents (p. 281).
- the key to building communication with parents is to be an effective listener
- the fastest way to develop community resources is to go through students' parents
Stevenson offers additional suggestions regarding parental involvement:
- Parents can work on community service projects and parents can serve as general helpers in the school. Partnerships can be preserved by letting parents know they are appreciated.
- George et. al. (1992) suggest the use of community service activities for students to have hands-on experience in an apprenticeship fashion. They advocate that doing things that are useful to others is a good way of developing feelings of worth and belonging.
Community involvement in the school is imperative (Keefe, Valentine, Clark & Irvin, 1993, p. 37); school walls seem to fade; community involvement is a natural and essential component of the school.
Changing middle schools requires establishing close links among home, school, and community (Ames & Miller, 1994, p. 190).
Because effective schools have more contact with parents and community members, the community tends to support school goals and believe that the school is doing a good job in achieving them. Parents and other community members are frequently involved in meaningful school activities: tutoring, fund-raising, planning and the like (Johnston & Markle, 1986, p. 7).
According to the Carnegie Corporation (1989) ...if we are to cultivate public confidence in our work, teams and individual schools must develop these critical benefactors.
Based on the work of Garvin (1988) and Melton (1987), Stevenson (1992, p. 315) lists nine priorities parents have for their middle school children:
Parents want to know their youngster will feel safe and be safe.
Parents want their child to know at least one adult they can approach when they have problems.
1) Parents expect the school to see that constructive interpersonal relationships are emphasized
2) Parents associate their children=s happiness with the degree to which youngsters feel they belong to the total school program
3) They want their children to have enough successful experience each day to reinforce good feeling about returning the next day
4) Parents want their children to be challenged academically and to achieve, but they want learning to be realistic
5) Parents want teachers to keep their children informed about their progress; they want to help, especially with homework
6) Parents want to feel welcomed at school, known by their names, and invited for more than just parent conferences
They want the schools to help them learn more about what their children are like at this time, providing seminars, support groups, and access to resources and professional organizations.
A number of prominent educators and national educational organizations have promoted the idea of community service as part of the curriculum (George, et. al. p. 78). One example that has been successful is the HUGS (Helping Us Grow Through Service and Smiles) program at Challenger Middle School in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The program is organized so the 900 students have regular opportunities to contribute to their community through community service. The benefits are as follows:
It helps provide a special vehicle for creating interdisciplinary units
It helps students develop a caring, critical thinking, decision-making cooperation and coping skills
It helps students develop a positive self-concept and enhanced self-esteem
It fosters an awareness of the environment, as it is related to personal, social, career, and academic development
Two practices Epstein and MacIver (1990) list in exemplary middle schools are parent involvement workshops on early adolescence and parents as volunteers in the middle grades.
Selected References
Ames, N., & Miller, E. (1994). Changing Middle Schools: How to Make Schools Work for Young Adolescents. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Carnegie Council on Adolescent Developments Task Force on Education of Young Adolescents (1989). Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century. Washington, DC: Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, a program of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Epstein, J. & MacIver, D. (1990). Education in Middle Grades: National Trends and Practices. Columbus, OH: National Middle School Association.
George, P., & Shewey, K. (1994). New Evidence for the Middle School. Columbus, OH: National Middle School Association.
Johnson, J. & Markle, G. (1986). What Research Says to the Middle Level Practitioner.
Columbus, OH: National Middle School Association.
Johnston, J. H. (1990). The New American Family and the School. Columbus, OH: National Middle School Association.
Keefe, J., Valentine, J., Clark, D., & Irvin, J. (1993). Leadership in Middle Level Education, Volume II: Leadership in Successfully Restructuring Middle Level Schools. Reston, VA: National Association of Secondary School Principals.
Kochan, F. (1992). A new paradigm of schooling: Connecting school, home and community. In J. Irvin (Ed.), Transforming Middle Level Education: Perspectives and Possibilities. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Ouchi, W. (1981). Theory Z. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.
This We Believe. (1992). Columbus, OH: National Middle School Association.