Parent Involvement

Grappling with notions of parent involvement

I am contributing to this blog to share some thoughts on parent involvement and reasons to develop a meaningful parent involvement program as well as to seek your experiences with successful parent involvement programs.  The impetus for writing this emerges from conversations with middle school administrators who received negative feedback from a recent district-wide parent survey.

I bring to this topic my own beliefs that the relationships parents have with their children affects the students' school experience.  In addition, the feelings that parents have towards education and the school and the kind of role that parents play in the educational process also impact students’ school performance.  From my perspective as an educator and one who wants my students to achieve school success, it is essential that I involve parents.

I have been researching parent involvement and have learned quite a bit on what I thought was a simple formula:  just get parents involved, make regular positive connections with parents, show parents that you care about their student!  Yet, after reading Hoover-Dempsey’s research, I realized that parents become involved for many reasons.  I contend that if we know, understand and address these reasons, we will be more likely to create and maintain a successful parent involvement program. 

Some parents believe that it is their role and duty as a parent to be involved in their student’s educational experience; others hold the belief that their involvement positively affects their student’s school success.   There are parents that only get involved when they are invited to an activity by the school and if they perceive the school as a welcoming place.  Often it takes a special invitation by a teacher or a heartfelt request by their own student to have some parents attend events.  It is also important to consider that there are parents who have time and resources which allow for involvement. I also see that some parents deem themselves qualified with specific content skills to actively support their student.

These reasons for and types of involvement are all very different.  I wonder if we, as educators, are considering this diversity of parent perspective when we develop initiatives for increasing parent involvement. 

Here are some questions that I ask myself and the group of colleagues working together with me on this goal:

•     what do we define as meaningful parent involvement?
•       how do we intentionally embark on a program to get the kind of involvement that we want?
•       do we need to adjust our approach to parent involvement as the family structure has changed?

More specifically, I am also posing these guiding questions:

• if we know that there are parents who think they can help their child succeed, what are we doing to increase their efficacy so that they maintain or increase their commitment?
• what do we do to create a school which is welcoming to parents?

There are many more questions that I want answered in order to launch an effective parent involvement program.  I am looking forward to reading your responses and learning from them.  I have included the source below if you are interested reading more research on parent involvement.

Eileen Melody

Hoover‐Dempsey, K., Walker, J., Sandler, H., Whetsel, D., Green, C., Wilkins, A., & Closson, K. (2005). Why Do Parents Become Involved? Research Findings and Implications. The Elementary School Journal, 106(2), 105-130. doi:1. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/499194 doi:1