What Hispanic Students Say About Parental

Involvement

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If you wish to use this presentation for educational and non-profit purposes, please

contact Dr. Lourdes at: lourdesdr@bellsouth.net

The purpose of this presentation is to share with teachers and school administrators what high school

Hispanic students are saying about the impact of parental involvement in

their academic careers.

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The following are quotes from Hispanic Students

“Also, there is a need for a strong push from Hispanic or African American parents to do well in

school, and not to let their kids go by failing subjects year after year.”

“Hispanics don't have that example to look up to or that coach at home to help them

when they need help.”

“Our parents can also do things so we can move forward. Parents can talk to their children and let them

know that they are there to support them, and that no matter what

happens, they will always be there for them.”

“Many of the Hispanic students come from first or second-

generation of immigrants who have not yet experienced the

demanding curriculums of American schools.”

“My parents expect so much from me and continuously tell me that I need to do well in school, yet they are completely clueless as to what my school experience is like because they didn't get as

far as I did.

“A lot of Hispanic students tend to complain about how they do not

get much support from home and even I would have to agree

with them.”

“I believe that Hispanic students' scores are lower than their peers because we don't have a lot of

support as other White people do.”  

“It is not that our parents are not interested in our education, but

language barriers and ignorance in general are directly affecting the

improvement of the Latino students.”

“Neither my mom nor my dad are fluent in the language (English), which makes it hard for them to

understand problems that I might encounter at school; let alone

come to any of the conferences with the teachers.”

“My parents were born and raised in Mexico, and they came here to

start a better life. But since Mexico has different ways and cultures,

they don't know how to react with the cultures here in the

United States.”

“For instance, if I need help with homework, my parents wouldn't

know how to help me, because of the different materials.  So it's hard

for someone to get help from parents that can’t give you

that help.”

“With the Whites they have parents that were born in the USA, and they've learned the materials, and they understand it; so with just a little bit of review they would be

able to help out their kids.”

“The schools should also have meetings with Hispanic parents to advise them where their student status is at in the

school, give them some advise to help their child succeed and have different strategies in how to approach school.”

“Also, the cultural differences are much too great since our parents posses a totally different mentality than the average White parent.”

“The school should take the time to explain to our parents the

importance of our education and the fact that because we are

Hispanic we are prone to being unsuccessful.”

“Help our parents understand that we will need help and motivation because that shows us that our

performance will make a difference for someone other

than ourselves.”

“Schools can help us Hispanics by educating our parents on how

important it is to go to college and how important education is.”  

“The school can have meetings with the Hispanic parents and tell them how education is so important and educate them somehow and tell

them that their problems shouldn't interfere with school.”

“Schools should teach parents how to help their child in any way they

can because their help is a big impact in the child's life.”

“Schools should teach parents how to help their child in any way they

can because their help is a big impact in the child's life.”

 ”If the main people in your life don't know how important it is to have an education, how are students going

to know in the future when they don't know what to do?”

“One thing with the whole parent issue is that maybe parents can be given some understanding of our

education. They can be given some education on how to help us

because ultimately they are our parents and in many cases our

biggest influence in life.”

“Schools can help by letting our parents know that they should

give more support for the students instead of just making it

seem as if - it’s all up to the students and so on.”

“Schools could help Hispanics by maybe setting up a meeting

where they call their parents and inform them of how poorly

Hispanics are doing.”

“I think that it would be nice to have more meetings in Spanish for the

parents who don’t speak the language so they can be more

involved in what’s going on in their kids’ lives.”

“Parents could maybe help by simply making sure their children

are doing their homework and making sure they understand what they’re doing at school.”

“Something that the school could do to help out more Latinos is to

get their parents involved in school and to make more

programs in Spanish for the parents to be able to understand it and help their children with the

homework.”

“I think that meetings should be translated in Spanish in order for our parents to get involved and help us succeed. Our parents

need to know where to guide us.”

“My parents for example need me to come with them to the meetings in order to translate and it would be nice if there could be someone to

help us more.”

“They (school) could also have a special night to bring in the

Spanish speaking parents and talk with them about their child’s

classes and tell them to support their children to do well and keep

their grades up.”

“I think the school could have more workshops that help reach out towards the parents at home.”

“The school could send letters home to inform parents how to get involved in their child’s life.”

“Since most of our parents only came here recently they have not yet learned English, therefore, our

parents can’t do much to get involved with the school to help us

succeed.”

“I think that it would be nice to have more meetings in Spanish for the

parents who don’t speak the language so they can be more

involved in what’s going on in their kids’ lives. My parents for example need me to come with them to the

meetings in order to translate and it would be nice if there could be

someone to help us more.”

“Hispanic parents are afraid to come to meetings since they know that they will be in English and they won’t be able to understand it. So they leave it to us to figure it out.”

“The parents are not encouraging enough to help their kids in school. They do not get involved with their

academic reports or encourage them to do better in the class that they are not performing well in.”

“The parents need to be more involved, make more time for their

children, try and be ‘friends’ to some level with their children, from birth, and teach them that there is more in life. They need to look not only at what today has, but also

the future.”

“Also our background, they (parents) are still living in the old ways. We

have ‘costumbres’ that are passed from generation to generation. Some

times those ‘costumbres’ interfere with other stuff…”

“I think that Hispanics do worse in school because of their parents.

Their parents aren’t setting the rules at home anymore. Parents just give

up and let their kids do whatever they want to do. Some kids go home

and tell their parents that they are going to drop out and the parents

don’t do anything to stop them; they just let them do it.”

“… parents don’t put as much pressure on them (children) as they should.

Some parents want the best for their kids but basically just leave it up to

them to do what they think is right. So I think that some parents tell their

children what they want for them and what’s good for them, but they don’t

stress it enough that the kids know that they have to do it, that they have to

work towards a better life.”

“Also the parent cooperation isn’t there. I mean, the parents of Hispanic students are usually something like this: ‘Just get

through high school and then we’ll see.’”

“Also help parents understand what is going on at school so

they can help there kids do good and let them keep trying to

succeed in life.”

Dr. Lourdes FerrerHispanic Academic Achievement and Parental Involvement Specialist

www.drlourdes.net

Lourdesdr@bellsouth.net