The involvement of families is crucial to optimal development of student’s in my future classroom. Parents play a pivotal role in encouraging, developing, and guiding students. However, during student’s middle school years, parents often play a more hands off role with their kids than they had in the elementary school years. In turn, this creates a disconnect between parents and student’s schooling and learning. As a result, students become less engaged, less attentive to their progress, and less motivated when there is a lack of parental involvement. In turn, Epstein has created a framework to help effectively promote parental involvement so that students can excel to the best of their ability in school.
One type of involvement that Epstein discusses in his Framework is communication between the teacher and the home, and the home and the teacher. There are many ways to implement open communication back and forth between the home and the teacher. Some of these include: conferences with the parent one or more times within a school year with follow-ups if necessary, weekly/monthly folders sent home with student work and progress, and regular scheduling of memos, emails, newsletters, etc., home to parents/guardians. All of these practices allow for open communication between the teacher and the parent. The benefits of such a practice are that parents are consistently informed with the progress of their child in school. Informed parents can then help ensure student progress continues both at home and at school. It also benefits the teacher because informed parents can act as a second academic advocate for the students when they are kept in the loop. There are some challenges with open communication, however. For example, some non-English speaking parents may not be able to read the various memos that are sent home, fostering uninformed parents. Also, there may not be clear communication back and forth between the home and the teacher, creating a disconnect between the guardians and the teacher. Although there could be some setbacks when initiating communicative practices between the home and the teacher, overall the practice has seen to be highly beneficial for student success in the classroom. As a future educator, I encourage the idea of open communication, and would implement weekly student-written memos home to the families. These memos would include progress made throughout the week, a school event that took place during the week, one big subject matter the student learned, and an area of improvement for the next week.
Another aspect of Epstein’s Framework is decision making by teachers which includes parents in school decisions, developing parent leaders and representatives in the community. Some of the ways schools decisions can be made with the help of parents, in practice, is through the implementation of parent organizations, advisory councils, and committees, in which parents can lead and facilitate conversations about curriculum and organization within the schools. Independent advocacy groups can also be established which work for school reform and improvements. There could also be networks to keep families that are not on parent committees informed and able to express their own concerns. Some challenges have been seen to arise when implementing parents into the decision making process. Some challenges include: keeping parent councils diverse in order to represent all members of the community, and allowing students to also be involved in their own schooling decisions. Although there are some drawbacks, there are also a lot of benefits when allowing parents to help in the decision making process. For example, there is clarity in all decisions that are being made for the students. Parents can directly affect their student’s education and ensure they are receiving optimal schooling for their individual student. This also promotes a strong sense of community among the faculty paired with the families and students when everyone is on the same page. In my future classroom, I would love to have as much parent involvement as I can get. I like the idea of having networks so that the families that are on the councils and committees can reach out and have conversations with the other families in the community. This is essential to ensure that all student needs are heard and addressed, even if the teacher cannot hear every single parents wishes, or if the parent does not have enough time to be on a committee.
Paired with communication, allowing parents to go a step further and be a part of the conversation is beneficial so each student’s needs can be met. Parental involvement has been shown to be a crucial aspect of the student’s middle school experience, and these two practices explained above ensure that families stay connected, informed, and allow them to have a voice in their child’s academics. In turn, students have multiple advocates, engagement rises, and progress is a working goal that involves the parent, student, and teacher.
