Schools that prioritize getting parents involved will most likely be more successful in having parents be involved in school. I do think that it starts in the younger grades, and must carry into the older grades. I would be curious to see a study that starts with parents being involved in Kindergarten, and if the parents stay involved because they want to or because teachers continue to encourage it as the child gets older.

Yes! Students (and parents) must be given opportunities to hear real-life experiences from others who have already taken the necessary steps to reach their goals. It is very important that students are not told college is the only option after high school, but what is necessary for their pathway.

This is a prime example of why my team for this course wanted to design a symposium to assist high school students in knowing their options and choosing their correct pathway. We must make resources available to our parents so they can best help their child make goals for his/her future.

I understand the purpose of completing an evaluation at the end of the year, but I think it is important to consistently reflect on the impact being made at schools. I would want to go through a reflection tool at the end of each quarter to help fix weaker areas throughout the year, rather than waiting until the next school year.

It is important to note that each school will have different responses from families and communities. Just as our students are unique with different learning needs, our families will have their own sets of needs as well. We must work to figure out how to best incorporate everyone into our schools.

The term noteworthy is important here. Many schools can claim that they have partnership with families and communities, but if the partnerships do not mean anything, what impact are they really making?

Even if the leadership puts actions into place to engage children families, how are parents being held accountable for being involved?

School should utilize these resources to assist their efforts in creating family and community relationships. The saying is "don't reinvent the wheel." These sample activities would be a good starting point for schools trying to increase their efforts and get more individuals involved at their school.

Page Seven: "The surveys for parents, for example, include reliable measures of school outreach to involve families; parents' attitudes about the school; present family involvement; parents' requests for engagement; parents' beliefs about their responsibilities and skills for engagement (role construction and efficacy); social networks and connections with other parents and other adults; and family demographics." This type of information would be very helpful for our schools. I am always interested to compare my perception of the school to another person's perception of the school. There are times when I think we are doing something really well, but others do not see it and disagree. This feedback can help us establish our relationships with students, parents, and community members.

Page Seven: "These studies showed that parents of students in TIPS classes worked more often with their children on interactive homework than did parents of students in the control groups." This is bound to happen when assignments are interactive and require parental input. I would be curious to see what the non-interactive assignments were for the control group, and if parents would have felt it necessary to work with their child on completing them.

Page Six: "School with greater numbers of engaged parents report higher rates of students' average daily attendance." This observation is not surprising as the students who have active parents are often the students who are better behaved, complete their work, and get involved in school activities.

Page Five: "Evidence of students' higher reading skills and scores and positive attitudes towards reading must be attributed to the efforts of all partners and school initiatives. Lower student reading achievement will signal the need to review and improve the curriculum, instruction, and family and community engagement." Would the ATP create differentiated activities to meet the needs of the individual students? I would want to find strategies to help the individual families.

Page Three: "By continually implementing planned activities and reflecting on the quality of the implementation, school teams will be able to discuss how their program and practices may improve from year to year." It is also important to note that our families change just as our students change. The activities should be reflected upon and realigned to meet the needs of the current school population.

Page Three: "The ATP and others work together to design and implement the planned activities on schedule. They take actions to communicate with all students' families, encourage participation, and promote new knowledge and actions for student success." I would love to visit a school that has a strong ATP that incorporates all six types of involvement. I am very interested to learn more about the communication with ALL student families and how schools incentivize them to be involved in activities.

Page Three: "Identify a partnership team." This task is easier said than done because most teachers who are wiling to assist on this team are already those who are overly involved in the school. Administration needs to work to find a balance and encourage those who are rarely involved to get involved in school activities.

Page Two: "How many and which parents feel welcome at this school?" This is an important question to ask and reflect upon as schools should ensure that all parents feel welcomed and invited to assist in school goals. It makes me wonder - if certain parents do not feel welcome, how does (do) their child(ren) feel at school?

Page Two: The article states "most educators have avoided evaluating the quality and progress of their partnership programs and have not worked systematically to improve their programs over time." I think this is an important observation to note because many school like to say there is community partnerships (due to school business partners), but relying on businesses to donate resources is much different than collaborating with businesses to best service the students.

Page One: While "what gets measured gets done" is an accurate statement, I would like to see more accountability brought into these tasks. For example, our district asked the math and english teachers to give CFAs this week, but most teachers just did it to check a box. There should be meaning from these measurements.

This is very important for the high school age because many students want to know the reasons for learning a specific skill, especially in the math classroom.

I like this rule and component because it essentially broadens the "what did you do at school today" and "nothing" question and response with "let me show you how to do this." Then, if students are not able to explain, parents can reach out to the teacher and ask for more clarification.

Very interesting. I can see how the discussions with family members would assist and increase student knowledge on the newly learned skills, but one would think that the report card grades would also be affected.

These are high percentages on homework. I wonder at one point in time my students became turned off to homework. It would be nice to identify that cause and go back in time to fix it.

This statistic makes sense, as well as the one about free and reduced-price meals, because it correlates to the home lives of these students. Students who achieve high on standardized tests are most likely coming from backgrounds with much parental involvement. In contrast, students on free and reduced-lunch probably have less parental involvement because their caregivers are working non-stop to provide for their families.

I think this is a very important and crucial step in the successful implementation of TIPS. Parents need to know the expectations and guidelines for participating with their child and the interactive homework.

This hypothesis seems typical and straightforward for a study trying to prove that parental involvement will positively impact students.

Our school district has a policy that students may only have a maximum amount of 10 minutes for the grade. For example, a tenth grade is permitted to have 100 minutes of homework (or 1 hour and 40 minutes). While that may not seem like a lot of time, students are already in school for seven hours and many high school have other commitments after school.

I disagree with this statement. I stopped giving homework last school year, and I noticed my students were understanding the material better and had better retention rates. This was also during a time of block scheduling. This year, I continue to not give homework, but the retention rates are lower (and we have traditional periods of 45 minutes again).

As I was reading this article, I started thinking about the elementary schools and the various activities such as the Math Nights and Reading with Hot Cocoa Nights implemented at the level. I think something that could be making it easier for these levels is the fact that students have not been able to develop a strong sense of their opinion on school yet. By the time students reach middle school and high school, they have decided whether school is cool or not, and their actions reflect it. It can be harder to work with groups (closer to adulthood) with varying attitudes towards school.

I like this idea because it provides additional feedback to the teacher that might not be seen in the classroom. For example, I notice several high school students are afraid to ask for help when their peers are nearby or can easily hide their confusion by finding a different outlet to express themselves. However, parents and caregivers can read their child more easily and can help us understand if the student needs additional instruction or, to spin it, more challenges in the content area.

Our TIS has created a 5 Ways to Stay in the Know flyer that is given to all students on the first day of school. Our county also created magnets to strengthen attendance in our schools this year.

Yes! We are required to give an IXL diagnostic 3 times a year (which can take up to two class periods each), the PSAT or SAT two times a year, and to have SAT test prep incorporated in our classes for a minimum of 20 minutes each week. The struggle to find time to teach true content standards is real.

I appreciate the use of a control group in this study because it will allow one to see if the changes implemented at one school district truly made a difference. However, this also opens up to bias because the students are not necessarily from the same backgrounds. It would be more statistically appropriate to create control groups within the schools adopting the changes.

While not a type of interactive homework, our school recently implemented a Freshmen Mentor program to assist our students in transitioning to high school and learning The Musselman Way. It would be nice to also have a mentor program with parents to assist those with their first high school student.

I believe this is an accurate statement. I think something that contributes to this statement is the social promotion that occurs in the previous grades. For example, in Berkeley County, we have students who enter the ninth grade despite never passing a math class in grades 6 - 8. How are we supposed to close the achievement gap if some students are multiple grade levels behind due to social promotion and others are where they should be?

I appreciate that the first step was to teach the educational staff about the families. I think we often expect our new families to fit into the culture of our schools, but military bases have their own set of rules and guidelines for which many people lack familiarity.

I love this idea. So much of our energy and efforts are focused on the students, that we often forget our families also need a support system. Some of these individuals are new to the area or are experiencing middle and high school with their oldest child for the first time, so having a buddy that can relate to their needs can be helpful.

Our school started a freshmen mentor program this school year, but our mentors and mentees were not able to be paired the same lunch as our students' lunches are determined by their 5th period teacher. I am curious as to how this school pulled it off.

This reminds me of an activity we did when I was in elementary school - kindergarten I believe. Our parents joined us for a Teddy Bear lunch where we had a picnic outside with our families and stuffed animals. I don't remember if there was another cause, or if we were just enjoying the time.

This is so important to note. When our school is in need of parents (for example, to meet interview guidelines for higher-level jobs), we call upon the parents that are the easiest to get ahold of and/or willing to say yes. I think we should start identifying individuals from various backgrounds to have multiple perspectives accounted for in our interviews.

Absolutely! I have three co-taught classes and almost thirty students to accommodate this year. I have already learned, however, that these students have parents who are active in their education. These parents have had to advocate to ensure their child(ren) get the best education possible, and can be the biggest supporters of our schools.

While I think it is important for parents to understand the policies and expectations for attendance, I believe it is equally important for school districts to ensure students are given the transportation necessary for this to happen. For example, I had MULTIPLE students in my classes miss school this week because their bus was cancelled and they had no other way to get to school. We cannot rely on parents to be the only means to get students to school on time, if the guaranteed public transport is going to be unreliable.

I think the hard part about this type of engagement is the approval required by our board of education. It is no longer acceptable for anyone and everyone to assist in our school buildings, but rather those individuals who want to be active in our schools must complete mandatory trainings. I wonder if this could contribute to lower involvement in schools - some people do not have time to do the extra requirements to be an approved volunteer.

This is a good practice for any type of organization. At my school, we are currently working on redefining our leadership class and student council because we are lacking diversity and do not have representation for all major groups in our school.

I love this type of engagement. I think this is something that, if implemented in elementary school, could set a foundation for parental involvement in our students' lives and course work. I would love to provide my high schoolers with assignments that require a loved one to work alongside them.

At the high school level, it can be difficult to remember that the communication is a two-way process because we are teaching the age where students should start to become their own advocates for learning. It is really difficult for me, as a teacher, to call home on a senior parent as some of those students are about to turn 18 or already 18 and should be able to make their own decisions and handle the consequences.

I have had conversations with elementary teachers who have visited and/or phone home to every family BEFORE school starts to introduce him/herself and establish early connections. This is something I have always wanted to know, but find it difficult with teaching over 100 students each year.

This statement appears to be a no brainer. Students often act and share the beliefs of their parents and community members. If these individuals show that school is important, then most students will believe the same.