The Home-School Team: An Emphasis on Parent Involvement

Students thrive when their parents become part of the classroom.

By James P. Comer, Norris Haynes

July 1, 1997

Credit: Marc Rosenthal

Children learn best when the significant adults in their lives -- parents, teachers, and
other family and community members -- work together to encourage and support
them. This basic fact should be a guiding principle as we think about how schools
should be organized and how children should be taught. Schools alone cannot
address all of a child's developmental needs: The meaningful involvement of parents
and support from the community are essential.

The need for a strong partnership between schools and families to educate children
may seem like common sense. In simpler times, this relationship was natural and
easy to maintain. Teachers and parents were often neighbors and found many
occasions to discuss a child's progress. Children heard the same messages from
teachers and parents and understood that they were expected to uphold the same
standards at home and at school.

As society has become more complex and demanding, though, these relationships
have all too often fallen by the wayside. Neither educators nor parents have enough
time to get to know one another and establish working relationships on behalf of
children. In many communities, parents are discouraged from spending time in
classrooms and educators are expected to consult with family members only when a
child is in trouble. The result, in too many cases, is misunderstanding, mistrust, and a
lack of respect, so that when a child falls behind, teachers blame the parents and
parents blame the teachers.

At the same time, our society has created artificial distinctions about the roles that
parents and teachers should play in a young person's development. We tend to think
that schools should stick to teaching academics and that home is the place where
children's moral and emotional development should take place.

Yet children don't stop learning about values and relationships when they enter a
classroom, nor do they cease learning academics -- and attitudes about learning --
when they are at home or elsewhere in their community. They constantly observe how
the significant adults in their lives treat one another, how decisions are made and
executed, and how problems are solved.

All the experiences children have, both in and out of school, help shape their sense
that someone cares about them, their feelings of self-worth and competency, their
understanding of the world around them, and their beliefs about where they fit into
the scheme of things.

These days, it can take extraordinary efforts to build strong relationships between
families and educators. Schools have to reach out to families, making them feel
welcome as full partners in the educational process. Families, in turn, have to make a
commitment of time and energy to support their children both at home and at school.

The effort involved in reestablishing these connections is well worth it, as many
communities across the country -- including those we work with -- are discovering.
Our experience is that significant and meaningful parent involvement is possible,
desirable, and valuable in improving student growth and performance.

A Starting Point
The communities in which we are involved -- mostly inner city neighborhoods -- tend
to start with relatively poor relationships between schools and families. Many of the
parents experienced failure during their own school days and are reluctant to set foot
inside their children's schools. Teachers commute to work and often know very little
about the neighborhood outside the school. Before they can develop effective
partnerships, educators and families in these communities first have to learn to trust
and respect one another.
Although it is less obvious, the same is true in more affluent communities. The lack of
trust and respect can be seen in the growing numbers of parents choosing to enroll
their children in private schools or educate them at home, and in the growing
reluctance of voters to approve school-bond issues. At the same time, relatively few
schools have open-door policies allowing parents to visit at any time, and parents
who insist on playing an active role in their children's education are often branded as
troublemakers.

The starting point in any community is to create opportunities where parents and
teachers can learn that they both have children's best interests at heart. We applaud
the growing trend to decentralize decision making from central offices to individual
schools because it creates opportunities for parents and educators to work together,
making decisions about school policies and procedures. Some may see this
arrangement as shifting power from school staff to parents, but it's not power shifting;
it's power sharing. It is empowering all the adults who have a stake in children's
development.

Participation on school-based planning and management teams gives parents a

chance to learn about the professional side of schooling -- to understand the inner
workings of curriculum and instruction. It also allows them to educate school staff
about the community and demonstrate that parents have much to offer if provided the
opportunities to do so.

Working together as full partners, parents, teachers, administrators, businesspeople,

and other community members can create an educational program that meets unique
local needs and reflects the diversity within a school without compromising high
performance expectations and standards. They can foster a caring and sensitive
school climate that respects and responds to students' differences as well as their
similarities.

A Wide Variety of Roles

Besides participating in governance, parents can be involved in schools in many
roles. There are the traditional ways: encouraging children to complete homework,
attending parent-teacher conferences, and being active members of their school's
parent-teacher organization. Other roles, however, require more commitment: serving
as mentors, teacher aides, or lunchroom monitors, or providing assistance to schools
and students in myriad other ways.

At a time when schools are adopting curricula based on real-world problems and
information, families can make a valuable contribution by sharing first-hand
information about work, hobbies, history, and other personal experiences, either in
person or via a computer network. Perhaps most important, parents can simply take
the time to go to their schools and observe, learning about what their children and
their children's teachers are doing.

The hectic pace of modern life can make this kind of involvement seem out of reach
for many parents. But there are positive signs that it is becoming more feasible.
Employers, concerned about the quality of the future workforce, are starting to adopt
policies that allow parents time off to participate on a school's planning and
management team or volunteer time at regular intervals. And more schools are
offering either day care or preschool, which makes it easier for parents with young
children to spend time at an older child's school.

This level of parent involvement in schools allows parents and staff to work together
in respectful and mutually supportive ways, creating an environment in which
understanding, trust, and respect can flourish. At the same time, students get
consistent messages from the important adults in their lives. When children observe
that home and school are engaged in a respectful partnership for their benefit, they
are likely to develop more positive attitudes about school and achieve more,
compared to situations in which school and home are seen as being worlds apart.

Better Lines of Communication

Regardless of a parent's direct involvement in school activities, it is vital for parents
and teachers to communicate effectively with one another. Each has a piece of the
picture of a child's development, and each can be more effective when information is
shared. Constant communication helps ensure that both schools and homes are
responsive to students' unique needs and therefore support children's overall
development.

Some of this interaction should be face to face, either at the school, at home, at a
parent's worksite, or at another convenient location. It must be considered an integral
part of schooling, and adequate time must be provided during regular working hours
for school staff to carry it out. At the same time, this communication must be
recognized as a critical part of parenting, and parents must make the commitment to
meet periodically with their children's teachers.

Technology can allow educators and parents to be linked into a sturdier web of
mutual support than ever before. Schools and homes can be connected through
computer networks that allow them to freely share information, via email and bulletin
boards, twenty-four hours a day and year-round.

It's not hard to imagine a time in the near future when all parents will be able to
quickly call up information such as a student's schedule for the week, current
assignments, and suggestions from teachers about what they can do to support
learning goals at home. They'll be able to review what the child has been doing by
looking at actual samples of schoolwork that have been collected in an electronic
portfolio.

To ensure that everyone, regardless of income or other circumstances, has equal

access to such electronic tools, some schools work with businesses and other
partners to create computer-lending programs for families. All schools should
consider creating similar programs. The needed computers should also be available
to parents at a variety of public settings such as schools, libraries, and government
buildings, and there should be free or low-cost classes to teach educators and
parents how to use them to foster learning.

The establishment of computer networks linking schools and homes fits neatly with
another positive trend we've noticed: More and more schools are broadening their
mission to provide educational services for their entire community.

Lifelong learning is rapidly becoming a requirement for success in the modern world.
Parents and other community members can either attend classes at a school or study
at home using distance learning technologies, with content supplied by their local
school or by one far away. Through these networks, parents can not only advance
their own education but also demonstrate for their children that adults need to keep
working at learning, too.

But the biggest winners are the children. When we walk into a school and see parents
and teachers working together, in all sorts of roles, it's a sure sign that the school
challenges the very best in students and helps all, regardless of race, class, or
culture, realize their fullest potential.