Parent engagement is on my mind a great deal lately as we enter into another school year. How can I get parents more involved? How can I give parents more responsibility and ultimately get them more invested in the program? NHSA is still promoting the Parent Gauge for assessing parent engagement. Another addition for parent engagement is this past week's launch of the Parents unite for Head Start Facebook Group. This group enable members to post pictures and updates about themselves or their children as alumni. These updates include posts about children that are graduating high school or college and the impact the program had on their school success. Parents also post about job successes and personal achievements. This page makes me realize how important Head Start is in the lives of many of our families. The ones most impacted are the parents of multiple children that spend several years in the program. Consequently, I have been reflecting this week on increasing parent involvement especially for those families that will be with our program for many years to come.
The common link with the families on the Facebook page and the testimonies of parents on the NHSA website is their level of involvement in the actual business of the program. At my center, we have a lot of parent engagement activities, parent meetings, and a few overall agency policy making positions. At my local center, most of the business of the center falls on my shoulders. One of my teachers and I are making plans to start a Volunteer Coordinator position, and Event Coordinator position, and a Parent Meeting Coordinator position. These positions would be 'staffed' by parent volunteers of teams of volunteers. They would be responsible for planning and completing the paperwork for their respective positions. Clearly, this takes a huge load of responsibility and time off of me but more importantly, it gives these position holders a sense of responsibility, guidance on detail oriented work, job related management skills, and potential employment. The only thing I have to say is "WHY HAVEN'T I THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE NOW!"
If this approach is successful, we will have even more evidence regarding the importance of early childhood education and Head Start in the lives of families and the health of society. There are so many 'what if's' with this approach. What if this approach enables three to four more parents to obtain employment? What if this allows these parents to have a sense of community with our school and raises their own connection level? What if this approach reveals a new skill or talent they weren't aware of previously? Parents will be modeling the importance of school involvement to their children and it is well known that parent involvement increases child success. The impact of this approach to Head Start parent involvement for our organization is huge and can be used for advocacy to state policy makers.
I guess for me as a parent, to answer the question of how a teacher can get me more involved is communication, understanding and consideration. My experience, not knowing other parents, having and practicing different culture, I feel uncomfortable being a part of something that I feel that I am being judge. Although you do not hear it, you can see it in a person's face. So for a teacher who puts the effort in understanding what I go through, the effort I put in to get where I am at, and consider my difference makes me feel welcomed and want to participate and to help. Open communication and bias elimination is key.
ReplyDeleteI agree head start is the foundation to learning, and getting parents involved is not a easy task. The majority of the parents work so its almost impossible for them to participate. But I agree that open communication is key and working together makes builds strong relationships. Great Post!
ReplyDelete