Building Successful Partnerships With Parents

Parents can be a source of support for teachers, or they can create obstacles to success.  To develop positive relationships with your students’ parents and encourage their cooperation, try the following three-pronged approach:

1.) Open the Lines of Communication

* Send home a detailed welcome letter the first day of school, or mail it before school starts.  The letter should contain information about yourself, your policies and the curriculum.  Most importantly, include your contact information and encourage parents to get in touch with you if they have any questions or concerns throughout the year.

* Deliver a thorough presentation at parent orientation.  In addition to discussing your curriculum, tell parents about yourself, including your background, your teaching style, and your philosophy on homework and tests.  Be receptive to questions and come across as approachable.

* Gather valuable information through written surveys. Ask parents about their child’s strengths and weaknesses, their interests outside of school, their attitude toward school, and their study habits. Parents will appreciate the opportunity to share information about their children that will help you get to know them.

* Contact parents to report positive news.  If you’re an elementary school teacher, call each of the parents in your class to give some positive feedback. For example, tell them their child scored 100% on a spelling test or their child is making friends.  If you’re a middle school or high school teacher, you can send a mass e-mail or a note home to let parents know the year is off to a good start.

2.) Maintain the Home-School Connection

* Keep parents informed.  Send home a letter, newsletter or notice regularly about classroom activities to keep parents in the loop. Parents also appreciate advance notice of upcoming assignments.

* Invite parental involvement in the classroom. Elementary school teachers can invite parents in to read books to the class, share information about their cultures, or demonstrate a hobby.  Middle school and high school teachers can invite parents in as guest speakers if they have a career that’s relevant to a particular unit of study.

3.) Tackle Problems Constructively

* Contact the parent as soon as you detect a problem. Your role isn’t to inform the parent that their child is struggling with a problem—whether it’s academic, behavioral or social. You want to enlist their help in resolving it. 

* Take a positive approach.  Acknowledge the child’s positive attributes.  For example, you can say, “Your child has these good qualities, but I’m concerned about this one area.”  Also reassure parents that their child can succeed if you work together.

* Listen to the parent’s input.  Parents have information about their child’s past behavior or academic issues that can shed light on the situation you’re facing.

* Recommend a solution that involves the parents. Tell parents what they can do at home to reinforce what you’re doing in the classroom to help their child overcome the problem. 

* Remember, the parent is your partner.  Parents bear part of the responsibility for their child’s education.

If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at natalie@laureltonmedia.com.  Please read last week’s article on effective strategies parents can implement to build successful partnerships with teachers. 

Building a Successful Partnership With Your Child’s Teacher

On the National PTA’s list of Top 10 Things Teachers Wish Parents Would Do, “be involved” ranks number one. Studies show that parental involvement has a major impact on a child’s academic success. To support your child effectively, strive to develop a cooperative relationship with his or her teacher using the following three-pronged approach:

1.) Open the Lines of Communication

* Give the teacher your contact information at the beginning of the school year, and welcome the teacher to contact you for any reason. If you don’t have a chance to meet the teacher at parent orientation, send a brief note or e-mail.

* Find out how the teacher prefers to communicate, whether by written note, e-mail or phone, so you can ensure a quick response to your future questions and concerns.

* Volunteer your time. Offer to come into the class to share information about your culture, career or interests if they are relevant to the curriculum. Offer to assist the teacher with administrative duties, project preparation or other useful tasks.

2.) Maintain the Home-School Connection

* Get involved. Volunteer with your school’s PTA to support your child’s teacher and school.

* Stay informed. Set aside time to read the notices, newsletters and progress reports the teacher sends home. Visit the teacher’s website and the school’s website regularly.

* Communicate with your child. Ask your child if he or she handed in yesterday’s homework assignments and studied for upcoming tests. Look over the homework to make sure it’s high quality.

3.) Tackle Problems Constructively

* Approach the teacher as soon as you detect a problem. If you have a concern, your child’s teacher will want to know about it so he or she can address the issue.

* Don’t contact the principal or another administrator instead of the teacher. This approach conveys to the teacher that you don’t respect him or her as a professional, which will damage your relationship going forward. In addition, the principal is probably going to refer you to the teacher or get the teacher involved.

* Adopt the right attitude. In a professional and respectful manner, explain your point of view and ask the teacher for his or her perspective. For example, you can say, “This is what I’m noticing…. What’s your take on the situation.”

* Listen to the teacher’s viewpoint. The teacher offers an important perspective because he or she observes and interacts with your child in an academic setting.

* Give the teacher your input. Tell the teacher what you know about your child’s past academic experiences and behavior that will help the teacher serve your child better.

* Value the teacher’s recommendation. Parents are experts on their children, but teachers are experts in the field of education.

* Offer to be part of the solution. Ask the teacher what you can do at home to help support what the teacher is doing in the classroom.

* Remember, the teacher is your ally, not your adversary. Your child’s teacher is on your side and shares your goal: the academic success of your child.

If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at natalie@laureltonmedia.com. Please check back next week to read my article on effective strategies teachers can implement to build successful partnerships with parents.

Unleashed Emotions Spark Success in Middle School, Says Author Bernie Schein

As the new school year swiftly approaches, parents of sixth graders are bracing for their foray into the dreaded middle school years.  Veteran middle school parents have warned them that their obedient, pleasant children are about to morph into angst-ridden pre-teens, percolating with an explosive concoction of attitude, anxiety and hormones.  Parents are wondering how they’re going to facilitate the academic progress of their middle school children if merely talking to them poses a challenge.

In his book, “If Holden Caulfield Were in My Classroom: Inspiring Love, Creativity, and Intelligence in Middle School Kids” (Sentient Publications), esteemed educator Bernie Schein shows parents and teachers how he dismantled his students’ protective walls and fostered their intellectual and artistic abilities through his unconventional teaching style. 

The book focuses on the seventh and eighth grade students in Schein’s English and social studies classes at Paideia, a private school in Atlanta where he taught before retiring.  He was the principal of three different schools in Mississippi and South Carolina before joining the staff at Paideia, which he helped start.  He holds a Master of Education degree from Harvard University, with an emphasis in educational psychology.

By encouraging his students to acknowledge their emotions and embrace honesty, Schein fostered their appreciation and understanding of literature, and enabled them to craft rich and meaningful essays.  He conveys his process through detailed accounts of the interactions and discussions among the students in his classroom.  He relates the background of each student, describing the relationships and incidents in their past and present that have influenced their attitudes, outlooks, and social and emotional growth.

One of the many messages Schein imparts is that parental support benefited his students.  When discussing Betsy, Kathleen and Joseph, he writes, “They do have an advantage: their parents are supportive, or at least respectful, of their education, as are the parents of most of the students I teach.”

In a recent interview, I asked Schein what qualities characterize a supportive parent.  “They would listen to their children,” he says.

All children endure some type of trauma growing up, such as sibling rivalry or social rejection, which influences their behavior and attitudes, Schein says.  Children can learn and grow from these experiences, but only if they deal with them by opening up to their parents, he says.  The group “counseling sessions” that took place in his classroom helped his students discover their true feelings and muster the courage to share them with their parents.

Schein offers parents the following suggestions:

* Listen.  “Listening opens the child up,” he says.

* Refrain from lecturing.

* Allow children to express their anger openly.  “Truth is underneath it, and it can come flowing out,” he says.

* Refrain from trying to fix the problem.  “It denies his pain,” he says.

* Avoid cheerleading when the child is down, which also invalidates the pain.

A strong parent-child bond leads to greater academic and creative achievements, Schein says.  The notion that teens yearn to separate from their parents is a myth.  “They’re dying for a close, intimate relationship,” he says.  However, “a teenager doesn’t walk up to an adult—a parent or teacher—and say, ‘I need you, I love you, can you help me?’”  Instead, they act out and perform poorly in school.  “They passive aggressively just dynamite the entire household.  They’ll do little things.  They’ll do big things,” Schein says.  “They speak in opposites.  They act in opposites.”

In a section of the book intended for teachers, Schein discusses the importance of the parent-teacher relationship.  “Parents and I work very closely together,” Schein writes.  “I couldn’t do what I do without them, and I’m very grateful to them and honored that they would entrust their kids to me.  As long as I’m talking with them, we’re for the most part delighted with each other.”

To establish a connection with parents, Schein would meet with them individually at the beginning of the year “and take pains to explain what I was doing and why I was doing it,” he says.  In addition, his students got their parents involved by going home and talking about the class.  He also stressed to parents that they should contact him with any questions or concerns.  “If a parent calls me with a problem, the first thing they hear is, ‘I’m worried about this,’” he says.  “The biggest crime of all for a teacher, in my mind, is not what you do or what you see, but what you miss.”

In his “Letter from the Headmaster,” Paul Bianchi, head of Paideia, writes, “Over the years more than a few parents have asked me to intercede on their child’s behalf in the hopes that Bernie would be less demanding.  I do not accede to this request but instead insist that they talk directly to Bernie (which is where they should have gone in the first place.)” 

Schein says he responded to parents who complained he was too demanding by addressing the cause of the student’s problem with the workload.  “If the hysteria was real, then lets get to the root of the hysteria,” he says.  However, most of the time “the kid was being manipulative to get out of doing what he needed to do.  The kid didn’t know this most of the time.”   

Although Schein’s main goal was to help his students uncover the hidden truths and suppressed emotions that adversely affected their behavior and squelched their potential, he’s not opposed to discipline when necessary.  “Sometimes I’d give them calisthenics,” he says. 

If a student failed to hand in a homework assignment, he would tell the student not to return to school until he or she had the work.  He required the student to write the note home explaining the situation.

While Schein has retired from Paideia, he remains active in the education field through his workshops, talks and writing.  “When I retired I went nuts.  I wanted to go downtown and tackle people and ask them if they wanted to learn something.”

For more information about Bernie Schein, visit his website at http://www.bernieschein.com/

Is Obama's "Race to the Top" a Fair Game?

The Obama administration has clearly presented its stance on teacher accountability.  Speaking to the NEA and the AFT earlier this month, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan maintained that teacher compensation decisions should take student achievement into account (“The Trouble With Merit Pay,” July 15).  Last week the administration put some muscle behind its viewpoint when it unveiled the “Race to the Top” program on July 24.

At stake is $4.35 billion in competitive grants, which will be awarded to states that are driving reform based on the government’s criteria.

“We will use the best data available to determine whether a state can meet a few key benchmarks for reform—and states that outperform the rest will be rewarded with a grant,” President Obama said in a speech at the U.S. Dept. of Education headquarters in Washington. 

The program’s goal—to improve the quality of our nation’s school system—is positive and admirable, and I applaud the President for making education a priority.  But I question whether the Dept. of Education can create a fair system for awarding grants.  I’m most concerned about the administration’s insistence on evaluating teachers based on student achievement.  States that prohibit linking data on student achievement to teacher evaluations will be ineligible for grant money unless they change their laws.

Correlating teacher quality with student achievement does seem logical.  But it’s not that simple.  I think teachers would be comfortable with this method of evaluation if a teacher’s talent and skills were the only factors influencing student performance.  But teachers know the realities:

• An elementary school teacher in Connecticut told me parents have asked her to excuse their children from homework assignments because of hockey tournaments, family trips, pageants, or other extracurricular activities and events.  Students who don’t take responsibility for completing their assignments face no consequences, she added.  “When the parents get the test scores and they are low, they come running to us wondering what happened, asking us what we did wrong, what we didn’t teach their child in order to pass the test,” she said. 
• A middle school teacher in New York said the most stressful aspect of test preparation is that teachers must rely on each student’s sense of responsibility and level of motivation.  Some children are not mature or motivated enough to understand that they have a vested interest in performing well in school.  And if undisciplined students don’t study for exams or do their homework, and they don’t perform adequately on the tests, it reflects poorly on the teacher.
  
• A retired middle school teacher in Tennessee contended that schools and teachers should not be penalized for poor test scores because circumstances sometimes arise that prevent a child from performing well on a test on a particular day.  For instance, a child might have had a difficult experience at home the night before.  “People want education to function like industry; we’re working with human beings,” she said. 
  
• An elementary school teacher in New York felt her first grade students would respond better to the “phonics” method of reading instruction than the “whole language” approach.  But her principal, a “whole language” advocate, would not allow the teacher to use “phonics.”  By the end of the year, only two of her 30 students could read. 
  

Detractors will say these teachers are just griping and making excuses.  I disagree.  These anecdotes (taken from “The Teacher Chronicles”) demonstrate that uncooperative parents, unmotivated students, and unsupportive administrators can adversely affect student performance, despite the teacher’s best efforts.  In addition, a student’s home life can also play a role in their academic success or failure.

Another issue to consider is whether school districts in low-income areas will be at a disadvantage when competing for “Race to the Top” grants.  Parents in affluent communities can hire tutors and purchase additional study aids to give their children a boost.  Some students in low-income areas lack basic school supplies. 

The Obama administration has the right idea—invest in education and take steps to improve the effectiveness of our school system to ensure we’re producing citizens capable of competing in the global marketplace.  But the “Race to the Top” plan has the potential to penalize teachers and schools for circumstances beyond their control, even though the intention is to motivate them to succeed.  A more direct route to bolstering student performance would be to provide schools with the resources they need to reduce class size (a proven approach to enhancing student performance) and ensure all students have access to the necessary books and supplies.

Finally, we should invest in programs that encourage parental involvement, which is a major factor in a student’s academic success.  Children benefit when their parents take an active role in their education by communicating expectations, attending school functions, and developing partnerships with teachers. 

http://www.edgovblogs.org/duncan/2009/07/president-obama-secretary-duncan-announce-race-to-the-top/

The Trouble With Merit Pay

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told the National Education Association on July 2 that teacher compensation decisions should take student achievement into account.

“Test scores alone should never drive evaluation, compensation or tenure decisions,” Duncan said, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Education.  “That would never make sense.  But to remove student achievement entirely from evaluation is illogical and indefensible.”

The issue also came up when Duncan spoke at the American Federation of Teachers conference on July 13.

I’m not necessarily against the idea of compensating teachers based on performance.  One former teacher I interviewed for "The Teacher Chronicles" said she opposes the current approach to teacher compensation because it offers no financial incentive to be successful and no financial penalty for being unsuccessful.  Another teacher said she has worked with apathetic teachers who present a negative image of the teaching profession.

However, I have serious questions about the feasibility of a merit-pay system.  How exactly would it work?  Who would be responsible for evaluating teachers?  What criteria would the evaluation cover?  Who would determine teacher compensation based on the evaluation? 

While we have heard few specifics about how a merit-pay system would operate, we do know that the Obama administration believes student performance should be considered.

But a student’s academic success depends on a variety of factors.  How can we hold teachers solely accountable?  Even the most dedicated and talented teachers may be dealing with unmotivated students, uncooperative parents, or unsupportive administrators—all of which create obstacles to success.  A child’s education is a collaborative process that requires a commitment from the student, parent and teacher.  Positive and constructive communication among all three is essential. 

Another issue is that a merit-pay system cannot possibly take into account the non-academic impact teachers make on the lives of their students.  What about the teacher who helps a student overcome a debilitating lack of self-confidence? What about the teacher who mentors a rebellious teen, causing him to change his attitude toward school and his future? What about the teacher who supports a child facing a life-altering crisis, such as the death of a parent?  How do you measure the positive influence teachers have on the social, emotional and character development of their students?

While linking compensation to performance has its potential advantages, I doubt a fair and practical system for evaluating and rewarding teachers based on performance can be developed.

http://www.edgovblogs.org/duncan/2009/07/union-teachers-accept-duncan-challenge-to-join-him-on-reform/

http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2009/07/07022009.html

A Distress Call in June, A New Outlook for September

A phone conversation with a concerned parent on the last day of school prompted this New York middle school teacher to reflect on the importance of parent-teacher communication.  Her guest blog post below illustrates how parents and teachers can work together to bolster student achievement.

It’s June 25^th.  The students are on summer vacation, and the teachers are packing up their classrooms.  I receive an e-mail from my principal asking me to contact a parent who called her to ask what I teach in math strategies, an extra help math class that complements the regular math course.  I call the father back.  He expresses his dissatisfaction with his daughter’s performance on the math final, and has a lot of questions about my teaching procedures in the regular math class and in math strategies.  I’m happy to answer his questions, but keep thinking, “Isn’t it a little late to be having this conversation?”  If he had contacted me earlier in the year, I could have addressed his concerns and enlisted his support in helping his daughter succeed in my class.  Math is not her strongest subject.  She had struggled in math in elementary school and continued to struggle this year in 6^th grade.

As the conversation continues, I discover the numerous missed opportunities for us to work together to benefit this student throughout the year.  The father tells me he hired a math tutor to help prepare his daughter for the final exam.  If he had informed me, I could have communicated with the tutor to help the tutor better support the student.  The father tells me the tutor complained that my study guide for the final was not specific enough, didn’t offer any examples of problems, and contained only a list of concepts to study with the number of questions per skill.  But the study guide came with four packets that included the specifics and sample problems the tutor was looking for.  I ask the father whether his daughter showed him or the tutor the packets.  She didn’t.  I ask if he or the tutor visited my website, which contains additional study materials.  He replies, “How do you get to your website?”  I scan and upload to my website class assignments, worksheets and study guides throughout the year and refer my students to my website often.  If the father or tutor had e-mailed or called me to express their concerns, I could have referred them to the study packets and additional materials.

The father asks me about my homework grading policy.  I remind him that I discussed the policy at Back to School Night.  He explains that it was a long night, and he doesn’t remember what was discussed.  If a parent sees a grade on the parent portal that he or she does not understand at any point during the year, the parent is welcome to e-mail me and I’ll explain it.  The students are also aware of the grading policy.

After the conversation, I think about what I could have done to prevent it. I realize that I shouldn’t assume my students will relate information to their parents, that all parents are familiar with school websites, and that parents understand the importance of contacting the teacher as soon as a question or concern comes up.  I also acknowledge that parents are overwhelmed with the information they receive at the beginning of the year, and they may not remember everything they hear at Back to School Night.  Thanks to this concerned father, I revamp my initial letter that goes home to parents the first day of school to encourage their involvement throughout the year.  It now contains more detailed information about the 6^th grade math syllabus, my website, my grading policy, and other important topics.  It prominently displays my contact information and urges parents to contact me with any questions or concerns that come up during the year.  It requests that they sign and return the bottom portion of the letter so I can be sure they have read it.  The letter is ready to go out to my new class in September.

Amanda Schwartz

Middle School Teacher

New York

Teachers at the Table

The Teachers at the Table Act of 2009, introduced by U.S Senator Russ Feingold, would establish a Voluntary Teacher Advisory Committee to give Congress and the Department of Education input on how education legislation impacts students, families and the classroom learning environment. 

Many of the teachers I interviewed for The Teacher Chronicles contended that teachers should have more input into education policy.  From their vantage point in the trenches, they have firsthand knowledge of how policy decisions affect students, teachers and schools.  Teachers are particularly concerned about the flawed practice of relying on test scores to determine teacher quality.

A teacher from Tennessee said that circumstances often arise that prevent a child from performing well on a test, such as a difficult experience at home the night before.  She told me: “People want education to function like industry; we’re working with human beings.”

An elementary school teacher in Connecticut told me a lack of cooperation from parents can adversely affect a student’s performance on an assessment test. Parents have asked her to excuse their children from assignments because of hockey tournaments, family trips, pageants, or other extracurricular activities and events. She said, “When the parents get the test scores and they are low, they come running to us wondering what happened, asking us what we did wrong, what we didn’t teach their child in order to pass the test.”

A middle school teacher in New York said the most stressful aspect of test preparation is that teachers must rely on each student’s sense of responsibility and level of motivation.  If undisciplined students don’t study for exams or do their homework, and they don’t perform adequately on the tests, it reflects poorly on the teacher.

Perhaps teachers could also express their frustrations with government bureaucracies.  The teacher from Tennessee told me that one year the state education department refused to supply the school with its students’ math assessment scores because one test was missing.  The school repeatedly explained the test had been discarded because a student vomited on it.  The next year, another student vomited on the test.  The teacher sent the vomit-covered test to the education department in a Ziploc bag.

Linking test scores to teacher quality is only one of the many policy issues teachers are uniquely qualified to weigh in on.  A systematic approach to gathering input from teachers is long overdue.

Link to “Calling All Teachers to the Table,” Lynne Varner, The Seattle Times

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/edcetera/2009278595_calling_all_teachers_to_the_ta.html

Link to Teachers at the Table Fact Sheet

http://feingold.senate.gov/issues_teachersfact09.html