I just experienced a webinar sponsored by District Administration and Shutterfly centered on parental engagement in classroom activities. Two teachers, a mother, and two professionals from DA and Shutterfly gathered together virtually to talk about how parental involvement has changed. The old idea was parent focused, then family, then school with teacher and administrator agendas driving the engagement. The new idea is to be focused on the family as a whole, to involve hard-to-reach families, to think about family priorities, and to use community agencies and home/neighborhood settings. We in education know parent engagement leads to better student outcomes, increased confidence in those students, and fewer disciplinary issues. Including the whole family also improves reading skills and math proficiency in students. An illustration was used of steep stairs with no "support" which is the old thinking and a stairway with periodic platforms and a railing which provided "support" which is the new thinking.
The plan for success to engaging parents successfully is to first consider any barriers which must be overcome. Following that are establishing personal relationships, establishing communication, forming a partnership between the home and the school, training anyone who needs it, and getting the support of the administration. A question was asked - What will your school be? Negative? (which includes only reporting behavior problems, only reporting grades, only contacting the home when there is a problem of some kind) or Positive? (which includes celebrating all learning, sharing news from the classroom, complimenting student strengths, listening to problems and finding solutions) These are all items we should be considering as we think about the communication between home and school, especially as we start a new school year.
Of course, one of the intents of the webinar was to introduce Classroom Share Sites to the audience. This is a completely free space offered to schools, churches, scouting groups, clubs, etc. - pretty much anything which involves children in some way. There are lots of great features to this site, but perhaps the most interesting to me was the fact it can be password protected. Teachers who set up a classroom site or club sponsors who set up a club site can input certain members on the site and give them appropriate access. This ensures student and family privacy. Parents and guardians can become a member of the site and have access to all information, but you can also allow or block permission to save photos or documents. Some ideas from the audience including teachers establishing a site for their grade level or department which would provide a way to share information and documents.
I hope to explore this resource further in the near future and will be glad to share with anyone interested. Of course, our district has individual teacher Website capability through School Loop, but this might be a way to enhance those sites. It would be very easy to establish a Classroom Share Site and link to it from a School Loop page. Then you could take advantage of everything each company has to offer.
More and more people are getting online for information and our schools should establish a positive presence on the Internet. Caldwell County Schools began this process last year with School Loop and we hope to continue our efforts this year.
