Parent and Teacher 1 Running head: PARENT AND TEACHER

Parent and Teacher Partnerships Jen Deluhery EDU 600, Summer A 2011 Douglas Lynch June 18, 2011

Parent and Teacher 2 Some educators might prefer to think that they are the experts on educating every child in every subject, however, common sense tells us that thought is not plausible. At my school, we have made a very conscious effort to involve parents and community members in our school events and educational opportunities. We have included parents in every aspect of planning our school. Parents were involved in the school, along with our current principal and a committee of certified teachers from our church community, before even teachers had been hired (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008). The school staff believes, as the study by Patrikakou & Weissberg discovered, that parent perception of the schools openness to their involvement has a significant impact on learning (as cited by DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008, p. 385). Since we are a Catholic school associated with a Catholic parish, we have weekly interaction with parish members. There is a weekly school mass with parishioners. Any school celebration is planned after a mass time in order to allow all members of our church and school community to celebrate with us. As we are beginning the building of our school, we sought out the expertise of community members to help us on the building committee. At the beginning of the school year, we send a letter home to every parent and every member of the parish asking about their area of expertise and how they would be willing to share it with our students. These multiple volunteer opportunities have allowed for a lot of successful collaboration with parents and the parish community and have given the school access to numerous resources (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008, p. 392). Many parishioners have donated time and services to projects on which our students are working. Engineers have helped with a Science fair for the students to come see different experiments. Dentists have come in for dental health month. The Knights of Columbus have established service projects in which our students could participate. One of the

Parent and Teacher 3 churchs parishioners is a native Spanish speaker and worked with our principal to start our Spanish program. Musicians have come in to perform during music classes. We have several days in the year where parish members are invited to come spend time with the students, such as a reading days, doughnut days, and classroom visit days. Our school has been described as a huge family and we allow everyone to have a stake in our school and its success. We share information with parents through a monthly school newsletter and with the parish through the weekly church bulletin, both of which are provided in an electronic format. Individual classrooms each have their own styles of communicating with parents. In my classroom, I send out a newsletter twice a month to parents either by e-mail or hard copy and send notes, e-mails and make phone calls to parents about special events or to ask for volunteers for projects. I also send weekly notes or e-mails, depending on the parents requests, about the academic progress of their children, as well as daily notes when necessary or requested. This practice, along with the new technology our school will use next year, which gives parents access to daily lesson plans, assignments, grades and feedback from their home computer, makes communication with parents a priority and provides the frequent, timely and precise feedback allowing parents to contribute more effectively to their childrens learning (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008, p. 391). In our schools first year, we offered classes in Love & Logic, the behavior management system we have chosen that was founded by Foster W. Cline, Ph.D. and Jim Fay, to our parents. After reading a suggestion made by DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker (2008), I am hopeful that I can convince my principal to offer the Love & Logic parenting classes. As the school has grown and the building project has officially begun, we recently created a strategic planning

Parent and Teacher 4 committee which includes the schools stakeholders: parents, parishioners, administrators, and teachers. This committee met frequently to create a plan for the school as it grows over the next five years. All areas of a successful school were considered, including curriculum and assessment which led to a recent change in our math curriculum. The opinions of every member of the committee was valued. A mediator was hired to insure that all voices would be heard and represented in the best way possible as the plan was created and finalized. This opportunity truly shows the commitment our school has made to a positive partnership between our school, parents and the community.

Parent and Teacher 5 References DuFour, R., DuFour, R., & Eaker, R. (2008). Revisiting professional learning communities at work: New insights for improving schools. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.