Kelly Nebor

May, 1998

There were ten methods to help fulfill the short term goals I set for myself and for my classroom. By using "What's Worth Fighting for in your School" and the many articles both from the class and those taken from other resources, I believe my short term goals have been achieved. I also believe, with all the knowledge I have attained, my long term goals will be accomplished in the near future. I tried to use as many ideas and follow as many guidelines so that the purpose, the rationale and my own personal goals would be successful. I had such a reference. As I did each method, I could refer to the "book," "What's Worth Fighting for in your School," the articles (the articles that I used are in the section marked Articles Taken into Consideration), other educators, class notes and the Internet. (The weekly journal, being of my own thoughts and what I had thought was important, was one of the best references of all.) What a bevy of information! Let me tell you about it!

Maryanne and I got together and researched more articles about parent involvement. Most of the articles we found reinforced what was discussed in class. Some of the articles, such as: "Recruiting Parents and the Community" were inspirational as a starting base, but the 'book' was a constant guide how we can collaborate with others outside the classroom to improve what goes on in the classroom. The book helped me to appreciate, confront and develop a more powerful energetic sense of purpose in teaching. Because I was "doing something different" within my school system, I was glad I had learned so much about reform. It is exciting trying to transform your own ideas for the sole purpose of making the classroom and even the school a better learning environment.

I started in by establishing a school/home coordinator. I found one parent for the job. She is always willing to help out. I asked her to assist me by contacting parents when we have a special activity going on. She would actually help me plan projects as well. By having a school/home coordinator, it made my job much easier. The coordinator was willing and very persistent on getting parents to come in and take part in what goes on in the classroom and also in the school as a whole.

I used a community approach when establishing the program. I had many speakers come into the classroom. Some speakers were - a police officer, a fire fighter, a representative from Yale-New Haven Hospital, a scientist from Bayer and the dog warden. We talked about the community, our roles in the community and how important it is to be involved in the community. We also did activities pertaining to the community.

I also sent home weekly progress reports. It was a lot of work, but it kept parents more involved on how and what their child is doing within the classroom. The progress reports allowed me to better establish a closer relationship with the parents by leaving comments for them on the reports. I feel that parents got to know me a little bit better as well. It also allowed me to receive feedback from parents and get their input and feelings about their child's progress, or concerns that they may have. I found that by filling in their spelling words and their weekly homework assignments on these reports, more children got their homework in on time and spelling grades went up. The progress reports are very helpful! I intend to use these this year and next year as well.

At my school, teachers have gotten together to get parents involved. There is a school team. It is called the Parent Compact Committee. A particular group of teachers get together to figure out activities to get the parents involved. The first thing they did was to initiate an agreement between the child, the parent(s), the teacher and the principal. It is a written agreement of shared responsibility between school and home. It is signed by everyone involved. (There is a copy of it in the notebook.) The Parent Compact Committee had several activities planned for this year. Included was a Family Math Night and a ziti dinner for parents who came in or participated in school activities at least eight times. I feel that the committee was very successful in doing these activities. I personally am not on the committee because I am a new teacher and it is a part of tenured teachers' goal for the year, but I do plan to get involved next year. I did, however, follow along with the activities and did my own activities to keep parents involved. In my opinion, it is a lot easer to do this within your own classroom rather than the whole school, but it is really nice to get everyone involved and to get everyone together as a community.

Two activities I chose to do were a classroom collage, and to get parents to come in - I had each parent come to the classroom and do a lesson of their choice. The classroom collage went great! I had everyone participate. It did take a lot of reminding and my school/home coordinator helped parents remember to bring in the pictures. I told the students that we were going to discuss families and I wanted them to bring in pictures of family members and share them with their classmates. I told them we would make a collage of our family members and hang it up for everyone to see. I figured it would be nice for parents to spend extra time with their children to find family members and to talk about the pictures. The children loved sharing their pictures. We had many exciting things to discuss, like: triplets, and different kinds of pets. It also brought up death as a topic. One of my students lost her father last year. This activity was definitely a success. I then told the children that they could choose a family member to come in and do an activity with the class. The students were very excited about this. The turn out was excellent. I was getting to the point where I was getting two parents coming in on the same day. If I had difficulty getting a parent to come in, I would have an older sibling come in. So far, I had one parent come in and make bamboo bunnies. Another is doing a Mother's Day Project. Two others made pompom dogs and even a candy toilet paper roll. I had other parents come in and read stories or do the weekly reader for the week. I had a fifth grade sibling come down and he wanted to teach the kids how to play a game outside. I had a blast! I learned so much by having the parents come in and the parents all enjoyed coming in. The feedback was very positive. The feedback that I asked for was very informal. I kept the questions simple because some of my parents aren't very educated. I didn't type out the questions because it was a last minute idea on my part. The students loved that their parents got 'homework.'

Still another activity that I tried was a calender. I had the students make the calender for parents including events and goals. I used a blank calender so the students could fill them out themselves. The calender would let parents know when their child had art, gym, library or music. We also filled in birthdays or special events. When speakers were coming in or a parent was coming in, we would put it on the calender. The students loved filling out the calenders, however I do work with first graders and it took them a while to fill out the calender. I think next month, I will fill out the calender, make copies and go over it with the students. They can color the squares (gym = red, music = yellow, speakers = green, etc.).

Maryanne and I looked for workshops to attend that pertained to designing and implementing the program. We were successful. I attended two workshops. Some of my parents also attended. The workshops gave me several new ideas. One idea was to put a parent resource center in the classroom. There is a note that went home to parents in my notebook under "Resource Center" that explains my parent resource center. Not many people use it, but it is there if they need it. Another idea is to have a parent board to keep parents posted on what is going on or information to read pertaining to their children.

Maryanne and I met to evaluate this project. I feel it is very successful. I learned more from this course than I could ever have expected. This project was a great deal of work but every hour and every day I put into it was well worth it. The knowledge I've gained from this course will take my through my whole career. I feel so fortunate to know all this information early in my career. Working with Maryanne was very helpful. We shared many ideas and information with one another. Again, I will say I feel that ll the short term goals were met, and I know that my long term goals will be met as well. All I can say is, "Thank you!"