OPS Wants More Parents Involved
By Michaela Saunders, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.
May 14–Gail May knows that despite the best of intentions, it is not always easy for parents to be involved in their children’s education.
She has seen the obstacles — lack of transportation or child care for younger siblings, atypical work schedules — play out time and again during her 35 years of teaching.
That’s why May sets aside time on Sunday nights to call the parents of her 15 kindergartners at Omaha’s Indian Hill Elementary.
She wants to be sure the parents and their children understood the homework they were asked to do together over the weekend. Sometimes they just chat. For May, it’s about building relationships with her students’ families.
“I constantly see,” May said, that when parents are engaged, “their children just do better.”
Few would disagree with May, and recent research in Nebraska and elsewhere validates the benefits of parents’ involvement.
Parents also figure in several new efforts — initiated by superintendents, state senators, philanthropists and the Omaha business community — to tackle the achievement gap between middle-class and poor students. Closing that gap means, in part, increasing the number of parents who are involved in their children’s education.
Gov. Dave Heineman is among those who stress the importance of parents being involved.
“Read to them, talk to them, engage them in conversation,” he said. “It doesn’t cost a dime.”
Heineman said parents must accept the responsibility for ensuring that their children are prepared for school. And schools need to reach out to parents who don’t work 9-to-5 jobs or face other obstacles.
Many schools already are working to accommodate parents’ schedules, with some even providing transportation to help them participate in conferences and family nights. Some schools have been doing this for years, with the help of private grants.
The recently announced public-private partnership called Building Bright Futures includes among its goals a program to help parents make sure their kids are ready for school.
The metro-area schools bill before the Legislature also includes new support for parents, such as adult education, transportation, meals and child care. Education Committee Chairman Ron Raikes said the goal is to support what schools are doing.
“There are a number of clever and effective programs that are out there,” the Lincoln senator said.
Metro-area superintendents have highlighted the importance of parents’ involvement during their discussions about improving student achievement. Gretna Superintendent Kevin Riley said the “commitment gap” must be addressed before real progress can be made to close the achievement gap.
Other states have put support of parents into law. Nine states and the District of Columbia require employers to provide short-time parental leave so parents can attend school programs and conferences or volunteer in classrooms.
Heineman said such legislation isn’t necessary to encourage parents’ involvement. He said he intends to use the “bully pulpit of the Governor’s Office to say how important it is.”
Research done locally, nationally and internationally shows that students with engaged parents, relatives or mentors achieve more in school.
One such study, recently published, involved young children in the public schools in Crete, Neb., who speak Spanish at home. Lisa St. Clair, a researcher at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Munroe-Meyer Institute for Genetics and Rehabilitation, found that test scores improved when parents were told what their children would be learning and were taught how to support them.
Parents were given games or activities to help them prepare their children for a lesson in school or to reinforce the lesson afterward. Parents were invited to meetings at school to discuss a variety of topics.
And even though parents were primarily interacting with their children in Spanish, the children’s scores in English improved, St. Clair said. That was expected.
The more the family can support literacy in the native language, the more a child’s understanding of English improves, St. Clair said.
Nearly 30 percent of the Crete district’s students are learning English as a second language. Almost all of those children speak Spanish at home.
As at several schools in the Omaha district, the Crete district offers English classes and other opportunities for parents. Superintendent Kyle McGowan said his district has a parent-teacher conference attendance rate of about 97 percent.
“Everybody loves their children,” McGowan said. “Given the opportunity, they will be involved.”
Some Omaha Public Schools teachers make regular visits to students’ homes. Other OPS schools provide transportation for family nights or conferences. Family fun nights — with movies, games and other activities — help schools build relationships with families.
Ernie Boykin, a volunteer with the Omaha district’s African-American Achievement Council, said that if parents or grandparents have had bad experiences in school, building relationships can be challenging — but it’s not impossible.
“I know how parents feel when they feel like they’ve been neglected,” Boykin said. “You can either be bitter or you can try to make it better.”
Boykin decided to volunteer with schools in northeast Omaha because she wanted children to have positive experiences.
The achievement council’s greeters (men) and Nia Guardians (women) work as advocates for students and parents.
There are nearly 300 black men on the roster of the greeters program. Many volunteer in classrooms and serve as mentors. About 15 Nia Guardians — “Nia” from the Swahili word for “purpose” — regularly volunteer in school.
“We stand in the gaps,” Boykin said.
Providing transportation to school events, child care and even meals helps increase participation, according to school officials, teachers and parents. But, of course, those things cost money.
Many educators need grants to make their programs work.
Nebraska’s school funding system does not include an allocation for parents’ involvement. Federal grants geared toward low-income children, on the other hand, require that at least 1 percent of the grant money be spent on parent involvement.
At Indian Hill Elementary, private grants totaling $12,000 have paid for the monthly reading nights that May and other kindergarten teachers have run for four years.
Students receive three books each for attending. That’s important, May said, because many of the students in the neighborhood around 31st and U Streets don’t have books at home.
In addition to those family reading nights, May and other teachers work with parents to help them know that the little things matter, as was done in the Crete study.
May, for example, sends home nightly reading assignments and asks parents or other family members to write a comment about what their children liked or didn’t like about the story.
Many teachers arrange to translate assignments into the parents’ native language or show them during a parent night how to actively read a book — asking questions as you go, talking about the pictures.
Ana Partida, who has a son in kindergarten at Omaha’s Ashland Park/Robbins Elementary at 5050 S. 51st St., said she appreciates what the school does to help her support her son’s learning.
It’s especially helpful, she said, because her son, Ricardo Gonzales, is her first to go to school, and she is not always sure how to help him.
Partida gets games to play with Ricardo that help him with the alphabet, for example.
Still, Partida said, as much as she would love to be at school, it’s not always possible. Her challenge often is finding someone to care for her younger children.
For other parents, the problem is the balancing act between work and home responsibilities.
At a recent town hall meeting at Millard South High School, a parent wondered what authority the school district has outside of school, because “some parents do not have time to monitor their children’s behavior.”
Board member Mike Pate said schools can reinforce and support parents, but they cannot be the parent.
“Parents,” he said, “have an extremely important responsibility.”
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Copyright (c) 2007, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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