Education Advisory

[TO READERS: Is this 1979 (28 yrs ago) article still relevant in 2007? Please comment. TA]

1979, Education Advisory #9

OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO PARENT INVOLVEMENT

Two recent surveys of secondary school principals noted that one of the greatest frustrations was: “parent lack of interest in their children’s progress and their lack of involvement with the school”.

While it is heart-warming to know that secondary principals place such a high importance on parent involvement it is very disappointing that principals as a whole do very little to overcome this gap. They have the knowledge, the resources, and now, if the survey is to be believed, the interest to do something about it. Why don’t they?

If Education Advisory mail can provide any clue to this paradox, it would indicate that principals are, in reality, very resistant to genuine parent involvement. The classic frustration echoed in letter after letter from parents and parent groups is: “How can we get the principal beyond the fund-raising, tea-and-cookies image of parents?” By the time parents reach high school, no one should be surprised that parents have become turned-off from that kind of “parent involvement”.

The onus is really on the school to provide the substantive and suitable opportunities for parents to be involved, and then, even fathers will take an interest. In Vancouver where School Consultative Comittees are mandated, half the chairpersons are fathers

1. Work on filling the vacuum in this area. Most people on the street believe that parents have a close relationship with their schools. Little do they know.

• Ask legislators to speak out for parent involvment. Earlier this year the Saskatchewan Minister of Education told the principals’ association:
• The legislators of this province are telling you that they want the parents of Saskatchewan back on the teaching team. If we want education to work we need those parents back on the team, to reinforce the educational process at home, to encourage readership and supporting practices, to appreciate what the investment in education really means, and to help young minds adapt to to social change, and, like it or not to tell us how they want us to do all these things.”
  
• Support from the highest levels is very important. Principals who are doing genuine parent involvement tell us that this framework of support from above is important if they are not to succumb to charges from their peers of “insubordination” and “breaking rank”.
• Get your school board to put down in writing that it supports parent involvement in each school, that it will encourage principals and staffs and parents to work together, and that , it will provide incentives for this to happen (workshops, materials, etc.).
• Write to education faculties and in-service training institutions and suggest that they provide the theory, skill training, attitude development, and actual experiences with real parents for principals, teachers, counsellors, and school secretaries. A must textbook should be Parent Conferences in the School: Procedures for Developling Effective Partnership bv Dr. S. Losen and Dr B. Diament, Allyn and Bacon Pub. 1978. It helps teachers be effective in parent-teacher relationships and deal with parents on a co-equal basis.
• Ask commmunity agencies that value the family to get behind the promotion of good school-home relations (churches, voter associations, family agencies, mental health groups, etc.)

2. Work at your school level to change attitudes and resistance. Don’t let resistance prevent the formation of parent groups.

• Organize a parent group anyway, with or without principal help. Remember, many parent groups meet independently, then meet with the principal later.
• Invite a trustee, superintendent or parent chairman from another school to your meeting.
• Start a project that will help the school, a handbook for example, that no principal can consider threatening.
• Remember, a small parent group of quality is far better than a large group of domesticated “Yes-men”.
• Set up a liaison with the principal, say two parents, who will make it a point to talk with the principal regularly about the parent group and the views of parents.
• Get some teachers interested so that they can convey the message to other teachers and help develop trust in the process.
• Tell all the parents, through a newsletter, that you have established a parent group. Ask for their views, suggestions, priorities, and involvement.