nurturing parent involvement: two middle level teachers share their secrets

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Page 1: Nurturing Parent Involvement: Two Middle Level Teachers Share Their Secrets

This article was downloaded by: [University of Ulster Library]On: 17 November 2014, At: 10:02Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

The Clearing House: A Journal of EducationalStrategies, Issues and IdeasPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vtch20

Nurturing Parent Involvement: Two Middle LevelTeachers Share Their SecretsPamela A. Halsey aa Texas Tech University College of Education Lubbock, TexasPublished online: 07 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Pamela A. Halsey (2004) Nurturing Parent Involvement: Two Middle Level Teachers Share Their Secrets,The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 77:4, 135-137

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/TCHS.77.4.135-137

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Page 2: Nurturing Parent Involvement: Two Middle Level Teachers Share Their Secrets

uch of the parent involvement in middle levelschools focuses on extracurricular programs

(Valentine et al. 2002). These traditional forms of par-ent involvement include participation in activities suchas raising funds, sponsoring field trips, supplyingresources, and attending performances and athleticevents. Although these types of parent involvementonly indirectly involve parents in children’s academiclearning, they do provide an essential link between par-ents and schools. In fact, some parents feel more com-fortable participating in extracurricular activities asopposed to volunteering in classrooms (Halsey 2001).

Less than two years ago, a school district in westTexas initiated a program called Volunteer InitiativeProgram (VIP) to increase community and parentinvolvement in grades kindergarten through twelve.Through VIP, the district encouraged district teachersand staff to increase their efforts to involve parents intheir schools. Carlos Valdez and Mike Hogan, twoteachers at Madison Junior High School (MJHS), tookthe challenge seriously. About 400 students in gradessix, seven, and eight attend MJHS, located in a smallfarming community. Carlos teaches art and serves asthe eighth-grade class sponsor. Mike is the school’sband director. Administrators, teachers, parents, andeven students at the junior high school described Car-los’s and Mike’s concerted efforts to recruit, enable, andappreciate parent involvement as exemplary. Both ofthese teachers attributed the success of their programsto parent involvement.

Although both teachers involved parents in numer-ous activities, Carlos’s leadership in recruiting parentsto plan and sponsor an end-of-the-year party (an all-night lock-in) for eighth-grade students, and Mike’sguidance for parent volunteers who planned a band

trip (including concerts in three towns and a recre-ational visit to an amusement park) are especially goodexamples of teachers initiating parent involvement.These two activities were clearly extracurricular andaddressed early adolescents’ social needs rather thanacademic needs. However, they were accomplishedonly through carefully orchestrated parent involvementefforts. The success of these two teachers in initiatingand maintaining parent involvement may providehelpful guidance to other teachers who want to increasesuch involvement in their own schools.

As eighth-grade class sponsor, Carlos was responsiblefor planning the eighth-grade party. He solicited stu-dents’ parents to help with the preparations. These par-ents planned fund raising; gathered door prizes; andorganized food, games, and entertainment for theparty. Party planning sessions called the Parent Break-fast Club were held in the school cafeteria once everysix weeks early in the morning. After spring break, theparent group met once in the evening to coordinatetime schedules for the lock-in activities, prepare mate-rials for the games, and pack door prizes. One weekbefore the lock-in, parents met again in the evening andhad an informal dinner to celebrate the successful plan-ning of the party. The number of parents attendingthese meetings fluctuated from seven to twenty.Approximately fifty parents attended the lock-in to helpfacilitate games, serve food, and monitor students.

Similarly, Mike held meetings with band members’parents to plan the band trip. Mike and five to sevenparents met twice before the trip to plan and onceafter the trip to reflect on the success of their efforts.The band also performed a concert at MJHS after thetrip to show appreciation for community support oftheir program.

Nurturing Parent InvolvementTwo Middle Level Teachers Share

Their Secrets

PAMELA A. HALSEY

Pamela A. Halsey is an assistant professor in the College of Education at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

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Page 3: Nurturing Parent Involvement: Two Middle Level Teachers Share Their Secrets

Recruit Parent Involvement

Carlos and Mike made deliberate efforts to recruitparent involvement in their programs. Carlos initiatedparent involvement for the eighth-grade party by care-fully planned his contacts with parents using both let-ters and phone calls. He sent the first invitation for par-ent volunteers home with the students. To preventstudents from censoring the invitation, he drafted a let-ter that was both the permission slip for students toattend the party and the first invitation for parents tovolunteer. It explained the nature of the party to par-ents, and it also described the Parent Breakfast Cluband the various ways in which parent volunteers wereneeded. Carlos then mailed letters to each of the par-ents who agreed to volunteer to invite them to thebreakfast meetings. Letters always contained updates ofthe work completed and timelines for the remainingtasks. All eighth-grade parents received an invitation inthe spring to join the parent group for the eveningmeetings.

Carlos wrote the letters hoping to catch parents’attention. He described his letters as zany and interest-ing but also nurturing and encouraging. He oftenincluded humorous anecdotes from previous BreakfastClub meetings, used unusual fonts and small art logos,and printed the letters on brightly colored paper. Theseefforts prevented parents from thinking they werereceiving multiple copies of the same announcementabout the party. In his words, his purpose was “not toannounce, but to invite.” At times, Carlos called partic-ular parents to ask for information necessary for thenext meeting (for example, prices for the gym facility)or to remind them to bring particular supplies. Parentvolunteers also called other parents to invite them tothe Breakfast Club. Carlos stressed that recruitment ofparent involvement was a continuous process.

Like Carlos, Mike used personal, continuous con-tacts with parents to generate interest in the band trip.Mike first sent letters to parents during summer bandcamp to invite them to the school on the last day ofcamp to discuss upcoming events for the year such ashomecoming, concerts, and the band trip. Before eachband activity, Mike sent letters to band members’ par-ents inviting them to attend. In preparation for the trip,he sent letters to every band parent and also personal-ly recruited parent volunteers to promote the band tripat regular band booster meetings. These parents hadalready shown a commitment to the band program byjoining and attending band booster meetings. In con-trast to Carlos’s efforts to recruit a large number ofeighth-grade parents for the lock-in, Mike’s efforts forthe band trip were more narrowly focused on a muchsmaller number of parents. This relatively small num-ber of five to seven parents allowed him to make mostof his contacts with these parents through phone calls.

Enable Parent InvolvementOnce parents were successfully recruited, Carlos and

Mike provided guidance for parents in each of theactivities in which they participated. These effortsincluded sharing expectations and providing resourcesfor the parents to accomplish their goals. For example,Mike shared a spiral bound packet of informationabout the band tip with parent sponsors. The packetincluded materials such as itineraries, maps, studentdress codes, contact names, and instructions for spon-sors. Two weeks before the trip, Mike met with the par-ents to discuss the packet and answer their questions.One day before the trip, Mike again met with the par-ents again to assign each a small group of students forwhom they would be responsible. Mike consciouslyprepared parents for specific responsibilities they wereexpected to assume, and each of the parents was givenchecklists for their assigned duties. Mike shared: “If welet them know what they can do, when they can do it,and how they can do it, they’ll move with much moreconfidence.”

Likewise, Carlos provided parent volunteers withresources, such as a list of donors from the two previ-ous years, a list of facilities and reservation informa-tion, books about games, and a carnival supply catalog,to help them plan the lock-in. To assist them in solicit-ing funds, he also gave parents a letter from the schooldescribing the lock-in. This letter helped potentialdonors realize parents were legitimately collectingmoney on behalf of the students. Meetings were held atdifferent times of the day and days of the week to helpaccommodate parents’ schedules. Tasks were varied sothat parents could choose a commitment appropriateto the amount of time and effort they had to offer. Par-ents were always encouraged to “do what you can,when you can.” The resources both of these teachersoffered were simple to provide but gave specific direc-tion for parent participation and helped them developa sense of ownership in the activities.

136 The Clearing House March/April 2004

Keys to Nurturing Parent Involvement

• Use varied types of personal contacts repeatedly to invite parents’ participation.

• Provide direction for parents by clearly outlining what they can do to help, when they can do it, and how they can do it.

• Promote ownership and pride in the involvement by including parents in the planning and decision-making processes.

• Take time to reflect on parents’ progress and adjust their efforts accordingly.

• Acknowledge parents’ contributions through personal expressions of appreciation.

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Page 4: Nurturing Parent Involvement: Two Middle Level Teachers Share Their Secrets

Perhaps the most important way Carlos and Mikepromoted a sense of ownership among the parents wasthe value they placed on shared goal setting and ademocratic decision-making process. For both teach-ers, the first meetings with parents provided an oppor-tunity to set goals for each of their respective activities.Parents were an integral part of the planning process;the teachers did not merely hand them a predeter-mined plan. For example, the eighth-grade parentsmade most of the decisions for the lock-in during theBreakfast Club meetings. Likewise, band parents sug-gested and planned the activities for each stop on theband trip. In addition, both teachers encouraged par-ents to reflect on their progress and adjust their effortsaccordingly. This reflective component was taken a stepfurther when Mike met with the band parents aftertheir trip. This group had an opportunity to discuss theproblems they encountered in being effective sponsors.During this time, Mike took notes inside a copy of thesponsor’s packet. In recording their suggestions, Mikevalued the input parents provided and then changedthe packet to address these problems in the planning offuture trips.

Appreciate Parent InvolvementIn addition to ownership, Carlos and Mike wanted

parents to take pride in their service to the students andthe school. Carlos often spoke of successes when headdressed what he called “good things happening sofar” in Breakfast Club meetings. Both teachers stronglyadvocated finding specific ways to praise parents anddeliberately created opportunities to show parents thattheir efforts were appreciated. All parent involvementwas acknowledged during the activities themselves.These acknowledgements were more than simpleannouncements, and they allowed students to becomea part of the acknowledgment. Personal letters andcards were always sent after an event; Mike used a hand-written note of thanks because it is more “personal,specific, and doesn’t look like another form letter fromthe school.” The school newsletter and sometimes thecity newspaper also printed acknowledgements of com-munity and parent contributions. Both teachersemphasized the importance of expressing appreciationfor parents. Carlos shared: “Letting parents know you

appreciate them is more than polite manners. It goes along way in saying that you needed them and theycame through for you.”

Both Carlos and Mike valued building relationshipswith parents. The contrast between the sometimes dis-tant, professional relationship that many teachershave with parents and the more personal relationshipthey purposefully cultivated with parents showed howfar a little extra effort can go. Speaking about parent-teacher relationships, Carlos said: “As long as itremains professional, we keep it cold and distant. Butit’s not only a professional relationship; we are familyhere. You are building a relationship and a relation-ship is an effort. . . . We have to actually reach out andbuild those friendships.”

ConclusionAlthough Carlos Valdez and Mike Hogan taught

extracurricular classes at MJHS, they believed parentinvolvement was important to create effective pro-grams and to promote school-family connections.More important, they were examples of teachers whostrove to align their beliefs and attitudes about parentinvolvement with their practices. Both of these teachersvalued building relationships with parents and felt itwas their responsibility to not only initiate but alsomaintain parent involvement. They extended theircommunication with parents using repeated and per-sonal contacts. They provided direction for parentinvolvement, promoted ownership and pride in theirinvolvement, and acknowledged parents’ contributionswith expressions of appreciation. Their efforts to recruitand nurture parent involvement were intentional andpurposeful and may serve as helpful examples forteachers in other middle level school communities.

Key words: extracurricular activities, parent involvement,teacher initiative

REFERENCES

Halsey, P. A. 2001. Exploring school-family partnerships: A case studyof teachers’, parents’ and students’ perceptions of parental involve-ment in a middle level school. Ed.D. diss., Texas Tech University.

Valentine, J. W., D. C. Clark, D. G. Hackmann, and V. N. Petzko.2002. Leadership in middle level schools: A national study of middlelevel leaders and school programs. Reston, Va.: National Associationof Secondary School Principals.

Vol. 77, No. 4 Nurturing Parent Involvement 137

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