Parents and Community

Parents and Community Framing Statement

Rachel Ostler

ED698 Master’s Portfolio Spring 2023

University of Alaska Southeast

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Parents and Community

The teacher seeks appropriate leadership roles and opportunities to take responsibility for student
learning, to collaborate with learners, families, colleagues, other school professionals, and community
members to ensure learner growth, and to advance the profession.

In this paper, I will address the relationship between teachers, parents, and students. As a

teacher, it is important to not only keep open communication between ourselves and parents, but to

also allow opportunities to get parents in the classroom and interacting at the school. The artifact that I

am using to support this discussion is a family engagement activity that I helped organize and put on in

the Fall of 2022 as my role of Preschool/Kindergarten teacher and Title 1 coordinator. The flyer and short

reflection for this activity can be found here.

“The quality of parents’ home involvement in their children’s learning is a direct result of how

schools communicate and interact with them” (Wages, 2016, p. 21). In an effort to increase parent

involvement at home, my Pre-Kindergarten through 3rd grade collaboartive team came together to plan

an activity that would get parents in the school and talking about different ways they can support their

children’s reading at home. Wages (2016) said, “it is often the case that parents want to help their child

at home, but simply do not have the tools to do so. Schools should offer trainings on homework

expectations, testing strategies, and make-and-take tools in order for them to successfully support their

child” (p. 22). At our event we provided our parents with training on how to navigate Canvas, an online

platform where their students class assignments would be located, how to take Accelerated Reading

tests at home, gave them access to online learning tools, and went over tips for literacy engagement at

home. By providing our parents with these things, we gave them a way to be successful in being involved

in their children’s learning.

“Parent involvement is now recognized as one of the most critical factors influencing student

achievement. Recent research shows a positive relationship between parent involvement and a host of

outcomes for students: higher grades, long term academic achievement, increases in student attendance
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and retention, and enhanced motivation and self-esteem” (Lazar, et. al., 1999, p. 5). Building

relationships with parents can take shape in many different ways. Teachers can make phone calls, send

home newsletters, and post on classroom social media accounts. These are all great ways to keep

communication lines open, however, it does not get parents into the building or classroom. When my

team thought about ways that we could increase parent involvement, we wanted to find a way to get

parents in the school, and eventually in the classroom volunteering. Wages (2016) notes that many

parents have negative experiences from their past school years that they still carry with them. Because

of this, it might be hard to get them to come into the school. However, all parents have strengths that

educators must value. By utilizing parents’ strengths in the classroom, they can be more comfortable to

become involved in their students’ learning. “Schools should be viewed as a place where children’s

efforts lead to success. Parents and school staff work on the same team and are always ready and willing

to help students should they need it” (Wages, 2016, p. 41).

Another way to get parents inside the school as well as continuing the open lines of

communication is through parent/teacher conferences. Parent/teacher conferences allow parents and

teachers to set aside time to discuss and reflect on their student’s progress. At my school, we try to

provide every opportunity for all parents to meet with their student’s teachers at the school. This means

we are at the school from 8am to 7pm on a Thursday and 8am to 12pm on a Friday to allow not only stay

at home parents, but also working parents to have the opportunity to come to the school at a time that

works for them.

When I prepare for parent/teacher conferences I put together portfolios for each of my students.

These portfolios include testing scores for the reading and math benchmarks, writing samples, and other

work samples that showcase how the student is doing overall. Taylor & Nolen (2008) said, “parents and

guardians need to have a clear sense of their children’s progress so that they can be effective partners in
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their children’s education” (p. 427). These portfolios, paired with the students’ progress report, allows

parents to see what standards are taught with evidence to support the scores they received.

An important aspect to focus on during parent/teacher conferences is how a student is

progressing. Enoch (1996) notes that “the degree of progress is at least equal to the importance to a

grade or mark on a report card” (p. 48). Every student progresses at a different rate. Enoch goes on to

note that whether a student is below grade level or above grade level, the amount that they are

progressing is important information that parents need to understand. “Lack of progress is a serious red

flag that cannot be ignored. A student not progressing is falling behind” (Enoch, 1996, p. 48). This is an

additional reason that portfolios are a great resource to have during parent/teacher conferences. In my

district, we have our first set of conferences in October. This is only two and a half months after we have

begun in school, and because of this, it can be challenging to discuss how a student is progressing. These

conferences can serve more as a baseline for the future. While we can see potential problems and come

up with possible interventions to help at the time, we will not be able to see much progression until our

second conference in March. These portfolios allow us to look at student work throughout the year. This

way, we can have concrete evidence showing student progression, or lack thereof. “For parents to truly

understand the products, the progress, and the thinking processes of children, portfolios and anecdotal

records must be used to transform educational jargon into concrete, visual examples that support the

evaluation process and give meaning to it for parents” (Enoch, 1996, p. 48). An additional piece that I

include in my students’ portfolio is a Progress Monitoring Sheet. This sheet shows a graph that compares

students to the National Norm, or their goal, in Oral Reading Fluency, Word Reading Fluency, and math

concepts and applications. Depending on a students’ need, they are progress monitored weekly or

biweekly and these monitoring sheets show how the student is progressing based on other students of

the same grade level.

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An additional aspect that is important to note in parent/teacher conferences for younger

students is social emotional goals. Taylor and Nolen (2008) note that primary grades are not only

concerned about how students are progressing and performing academically, but also socially and

emotionally. These goals could include how a student is getting along with their classmates, how they

interact with peers and adults at school, and if they are responsible for their own belongings, to name a

few. The State of Alaska has standards based grading which includes standards for social emotional

learning that I make sure to go over during conferences.

Wages (2016) states, “True family engagement does not happen in an isolated instance. It takes

the committed efforts of families and schools forming a partnership through parent/teacher conferences

as well as other engagement opportunities which support student success” (p. 77). As I continue in my

teaching career, I plan on continuing this partnership with parents by continuing to plan family

engagement activities as well as parent/teacher conferences so that parents can continue to be involved

in their students learning.

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References

Enoch, S. W. (1996). Better parent-teacher conferences. Education Digest, 61(8), 48.

Lazar, A., Broderick, P., Mastrilli, T., & Slostad, F. (1999). Educating teachers for parent involvement.

Contemporary Education, 70(3), 5.

Taylor, C.S., & Nolen, S.B. (2008). Classroom assessment: Supporting teaching and learning in real

classrooms. Pearson.

Wages, Michelle. (2016). Parent involvement: Collaboration is the key for every child’s success. Rowman

& Littlefield Publishers.