One topic at a recent
Academic Improvement Committee meeting was that baffling riddle, how to get
parents to interact with the school.
Well, many of them
do. So the quest is to get more parents to do so. All the rest of them. And to
interact more freely, more frequently, in more ways.
That topic has been
raised many times since the AIC was created. Many possible solutions have been
mentioned, and some have been tried, and more are in the works. But thought of
as a riddle, the question could be “Why don’t more parents interact with the
school?” or “Why don’t more parents come to the school?”
There are Elementary
Boosters. This organization is open to all parents of elementary school
students, and staff as well, as I understand it.
Are there
junior-senior high school boosters? Not exactly. There is no counterpart
organization that parents graduate into, when their kids reach junior high.
But, as has been pointed out, there are numerous specialized booster groups,
which relate to numerous different sports and arts. Most operate to help
support those activities, and to help with expenses. They arrange car pooling
and fundraising and help out at events.
But there isn’t any
PTO or PTA or PTSO as such, and hasn’t been for many years. That kind of
organization used to provide liaison between parents and schools. Even then,
some parents participated, and some didn’t.
As for the
non-organizational, individual contacts between parents and their children’s
teachers, or parents and administration or guidance or nurses or psychologists,
how best can this be fostered? Back to the riddle: why doesn’t it happen more,
with more parents?
In some discussions
of that topic, answers or guesses have included these: Parents are so busy now.
There are many one-parent families. Some parents have had off-putting
experiences with the school sometime. Some parents did not have a good time of
it when they were students. Some parents feel intimidated by “the system,”
perhaps because those parents who lack college educations feel that
professional school staff, all with college degrees, don’t respect others without
college backgrounds.
And these: Parents
might need child care in order to keep some school appointments, or to attend
more school events. Transportation might be hard for some to arrange. Some
parents find the security arrangements off-putting: having to be buzzed in, and
needing to turn yourself in at the office.
These days there are
some work-arounds that can foster more and better contact between school and
home. There is social networking, so parents with access to the internet can
access the schools’ website and the web pages of various grades and groups and
organizations. But still, the face-to-face contact is desirable.
I can’t think of good
answers, or solutions, for all the forms the riddle takes and all the
suppositions that arise. Possibilities keep being examined. Perhaps closer
bonds are being forged between school and families little by little, and this
trend will continue. But I suspect it will continue to be a topic of concern,
because it relates to the need for partnership between school and home.
My father seldom came
to school when I was a student. He was a dairy farmer, and evening events were
very difficult for him to work into his schedule and that of the cows.
My mother was involved
with the school from the first day. Before, actually, for she taught my sister
and me our first grade at home, before we were old enough to be admitted to
school.
Mother didn’t consider
that “home schooling.” It was just what people in her family had done. Her
mother had been a school marm and also taught her children at home, and later
Aunt Maud had been, and when the little ones at home were ready to learn to
read and do basic arithmetic, mothers or older children taught them.
But as soon as we
were in school, Mother visited often. She invited teachers to visit. The music
teacher stayed overnight, played “Scarf Dance” on her portable Victrola and
danced for us.
Aunt Lulu was one of
the local teachers, and she Mother ordered workbooks through her so our reading
and arithmetic would blend with those of other students whenever we did start
attending school.
Mother was part of
the brigade of mothers who took turns bringing us hot lunches in the country
school. She was active in PTA at Liberty Consolidated. If we were in operettas
or plays she helped us practice and attended the events faithfully.
Once we were in “the
town school” she continued her practice of visiting school. This was considered
bizarre, and I must confess it embarrassed me, because other parents did not
visit school.
She didn’t just pop
in, but spent major portions of two or more days at the school, sitting in the
back of the room silently, observing class after class.
This was not easy for
her. She dressed differently from other mothers, with her hair in an
old-fashioned bun, her clothes not like the current fashions. She suffered from
edema, and was self-conscious about it, but never let that keep her from doing
what she believed was necessary or even desirable. Knowing her children’s
school, its teachers and principals, was part of being a mother, she believed.
Leaning was important.
Left motherless at
age five, Mother had been reared by her big sister and a domineering father.
Her father would not allow her to ride the bus and go to the city (Corning) for
high school, and so she had not attended school past ninth grade. Yet she had
gone to business school and acquired secretarial skills, and she was very well
read.
If any parent had
“reasons” not to “come to school,” that busy farm wife and mother did.
Every family is
different, but it seems to me any parent can override whatever hesitations he
or she has concerning in-person contacts with the school. Reasons for contact,
and even visits, outweigh drawbacks: shared interest in that parent’s children.
Peace.
Drymar@gmail.com.
596-7546
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