Schools Pull Out All The Stops To Get Parents Involved

Showing up at your child's school doesn't usually get you cheaper shoes or haircuts but in Detroit, one organization is hoping to use local discounts to boost parental participation in public schools.

The Detroit Parent Network unveiled the new campaign last week, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Under the program, parents are encouraged to register at one of the city's Parent Resource Centers, where they can attend workshops and find other ways to get involved in schools. They earn points for their involvement, which can be used for reduced prices at 15 businesses.

According to the Detroit Free Press,

With an expanded $1.1-million, one-year contract, the network is expected to increase parent involvement from 33 percent to 43 percent, said DPS spokesman Steve Wasko.

The new tactic follows on the heels of Detroit prosecutor Kym Worthy making national headlines for introducing legislation to make parents face jail time for repeatedly failing to attend teacher conferences.

Detroit isn't the only city looking to bolster parental participation in schools. In May, the Department of Education announced it would double federal funding for programs that help families take more active roles in local schools.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stated in a press release:

"It is well-documented -- and plain common sense -- that parental involvement in a child's education boosts student learning and improves both behavior and attendance. We know that children with parents who are engaged in their education are less likely to drop out."

NPR takes an in-depth look at the national discussion surrounding parent participation in their children's schools.

LISTEN:

Comments

[MikeyJaii]

05:35 PM on 12/29/2010

The educational system is screwed up in the U.S.

[RJC]

11:22 PM on 11/07/2010

How about charging parents with neglect if they are not sufficiently involved in their kids' education.

[Kashnowe]

08:45 AM on 11/07/2010

isn't it a darn shame when a law needs to be introduced to make parents go to teacher conferences? how shameful. they should be required to havea bumper sticker saying they don't give a crap about their kid's future too. i'm all for public humiliation as a deterrent for bad behavior.

my friend's son just started 8th grade....he went 2 months and never turned in one homework assignment and the teachers waited until the scheduled interim reports to inform the mother of this. she thought her son was doing well. of course he lied to her and told her he was. at the interim report she was informed he had an F in the class and basically it was too late for him to pull that grade up to anything more than a D by the end of the marking period. my question was why didn't they call the mother sooner to inform her? these are children we are talking about. they don't always have the best judgement. thats why we are TEACHING THEM. the poor kid will have to repeat the class....it enrages me to think. after 3 missed assignemtns the mother should have been called. it goes both ways. parents and teachers have equal responsibility to communicate.

[grandma58]

04:53 PM on 11/06/2010

Wow ... I have to wonder would it be easier for parents to be involved if there were 2 parents and only one of them had to work to support the family? We need to start by providing a better education to the parents.
It is unrealistic to expect parent living in destitute poverty perhaps coming from addictive backgrounds to get it-
Find the source of the problem and begin to fix it so we can educate our children.

[erinsf]

01:34 PM on 11/05/2010

Education begins in the home. If your child is not interested in school, it is your responsibility to find out why and to encourage them to learn. If you don't know how to help your kids yourself, find someone who can. There are resources on campus, there are resources off campus. There are resources that cost zero dollars so, this is not necessarily a money thing. Boys and Girls club programs across the nation help to inspire young people to learn, for example. I am so tired of parents who tell us that students are to blame for everything. Parenting is a VERB folks. It includes housing, feeding, safekeeping and EDUCATING your babies.

[Pandoras Folly]

04:10 PM on 11/03/2010

i know in the school district i am in they can bring you up on charges if your child misses to many days at school, you don't attend so many parent teacher confrences, etc. not sure if that would really help or not. My father is a teacher and he always says its how much the parents care that determines how the kid turns out. Sometimes you get a student who is ridiculously driven on their own inspite of their household or sometimes because of it, but most of the time they literally don't know any better. my freshman high school class was 480 my senior graduating class was 172, for the most part drop outs whose parents never encourged them to do better, or worse never told them they could do better. I think its weird for all the things you need a liscense for: driving a big rig, being an accountant, driving a car, we don't have them to be a parent.

[Lawson Meadows]

09:57 PM on 12/17/2010

Hi Pandora,

I know this is very late, but I just read it...

You comment was great, and very accurate regarding the relationship between parent and child, the responsibility parents bare toward their children, and the limiting nature of combining poverty and ignorance.

When parent(s) are the product of a cycle of poverty and ignorance, their children are most often burdened with the same limitations... then the cycle continues.

Well said... I'm a fan!
Lawson Meadows
damoki.com

[KJLSanDiego]

01:22 PM on 11/03/2010

Our culture is depressing! The what's in it for me attitudes people have these days are pathetic! Anyone who needs to be financially compensated to parent when they already get to send their kids to public school, free of tuition, is far too self-involved to raise a child!

[Jewels23]

02:14 PM on 11/03/2010

This article is really talking about schools in poor areas--which doesn't reflect the broader culture. I think most schools are doing great (Most schools are trying to cope with helicopter parents - who hover to much)

-- I think the problem this article is addressing is poverty--and how do we reach the kids who are stranded in these homes with problem parents

[globugg]

04:00 PM on 11/03/2010

In general, I agree with you. But I don't like the term "problem parents". I taught at a school in a poor area for 10 years. Some parents weren't involved because they didn't give a cr@p and told us their child was our "problem". However, there were lots of other parents who wanted to be more involved but due to working 2 or 3 jobs, or swing shifts, etc. they were physically unable to do more. We implemented a policy of holding parent/teacher conferences in the apartment complexes where the kids were coming from. It made it easier for parents to share childcare, and more likely to come when it was just a short trip to the leasing office. We also held after-school homework and tutoring clubs at the different apartment complexes once a week.

[CommunitySchools]

07:55 PM on 11/05/2010

Broader Culture? One in 5 kids is living below the poverty line. 93% of kid's in Chicago Public Schools are categorized as below poverty line. It's the 3 largest school district in the nation. I think parents living in poverty and underesourced is actually a much bigger problem than you imagine.

[bellsshells]

11:24 AM on 11/03/2010

Principals and Teachers could start by directly answering emails from parents; not passing them off to a "counselor" or admin staff. Many have auto responses or simply NEVER reply. They say they want parents involved but many routinely reject them. Remove tenure.

[Amy Rollins]

05:48 PM on 11/04/2010

What kind of emails were being sent? What were their tone? How frequently were the principals and teachers being emailed?

I'm not disagreeing with you that it's deeply unprofessional to not respond to parental communication...but are you honestly suggesting teachers be fired because you get an auto response to an email?

[CommunitySchools]

07:49 PM on 11/05/2010

I love the thought of a Principal in an inner city who deals with the shooting of her kids 2 blocks from her school the PTSD the school expereince just from the neighborhood being questioned about their ability to answer emails. Of course the digital divide in most those schools mean 85% of the homes don't have access to computer. Awesome.

[abbienormal]

10:46 AM on 11/03/2010

Parents need to be apprised of their kids grades more often. This would keep them better informed and protect teachers when the kids actually fail. So many parents claim that they didn't know that their kids were doing poorly.

Our school posts all grades for homework, quizzes, projects, exams etc. immediately to a private and confidential website that each parent can check with their child's password. It's great.

For those parents that do not have internet access, the grades should be mailed home at least biweekly.

That takes some of the responsibility off the teachers and on to the kids and parents.

[KJLSanDiego]

01:18 PM on 11/03/2010

twice a week? Are you going to front all that postage / printing money? Once every six weeks is plenty responsible on the part of schools!

[abbienormal]

01:28 PM on 11/03/2010

Biweekly means every two weeks.

[Jewels23]

02:11 PM on 11/03/2010

We have the same system. I love it. My daughter checks her grades all the time. You can also set it up to send e-mail alerts when her grades go down -- or if she is missing an assignment. Every school should have it.

[greenlass]

10:30 AM on 11/03/2010

What parents do at schools is less important than what they do at home. Limit tv/media watching, required study/reading time every evening, and to bed with lights out by a decent hour. And, based on the recent studies of all the texting that kids do when they should be asleep, take the phone away at night.
We're just talking about creating an environment where parents have expectations and support their children to meet them.
I, for one, was not big on PTA women all through my daughter's school years. I found them to be snobby and a little power-crazy. I did volunteer, but did it directly with the teachers, coming in to help with kids' reading and homework. I also think it helps if a parent is at home when the kids get out of school. Statistically, the hours between the end of the school day and "dinner time" are the ones where kids get into the worst trouble.

[JoAnnCr]

10:04 AM on 11/03/2010

Iowa has a great way to get parents involved in their Home School Assistance Programs that are funded by the state through their enrollment in the school districts. Certified (and yes sometimes union membered) teachers work with the parents to train them in how to educate their child. If you had a program like that in every school for kids to drop into whenever necessary, you'd have a lot of great parent education that lasts a lifetime. Involvement naturally follows.

[Jewels23]

09:59 AM on 11/03/2010

I'm from a school with the opposite problem.

Booster club/PTA Mom's drive me crazy--they want you to be at the school 24/7 - decorating lockers, buying teacher gifts, making breakfast for the teachers, running the copy room, the book fair. It is exhausting -- and most of it doesn't impact academics at all. The school is a huge 5A school in Texas full of overachieving kids and parents (you practically have to an olympic athlete to make the Sports teams. Most kids are in Club sports and have private coaching.

Of course, Peer pressure exists for Mom's too -- so I'm right there, paying for Agility Training for my son, running the cotton candy machine at the annual carnival, bringing coffee cake for teacher appreciation week, and making taco's for the Spanish Club.

I wish it was as simple as a Teacher Conference.

[VeryGrood]

10:29 AM on 11/03/2010

How are the academics at the school? It sounds like having 'the opposite problem' is a good problem to have!

Now imagine if that were to happen in every school in the US. It is just SAD that parents everywhere aren't willing or able to put in time to better their child's education. And it is even worse that it takes incentives like 'cheaper haircuts' or 'discounts on shoes' to get the parents involved.

[Jewels23]

02:08 PM on 11/03/2010

The academics are strong--lots of merit scholars and 80% of students go on to college. Kids struggle to get in the top 10% which requires an A average. Lots of pressure to do well.

[Jack Hutchinson]

09:57 AM on 11/03/2010

I work for a well known tutoring company where the parent has to pay extra NOT to home grade the kids' work. Many are willing to pay this high fee over and above the tuition. Pathetic. Just drop em off and YOU take care of them....the way parenting is done today.

[ramal]

09:51 AM on 11/03/2010

Well, bribing the children to get better grades didn't work, so let's try the parents.

[sushai]

09:31 AM on 11/03/2010

Getting the parents to show up once a year for a conference is not going to change anything. Parents need to be involved daily, checking their children's homework, communicating with the teachers, setting high expectations for their children. Unfortunately, I don't know how this can be "incentivized."