Parent Development

Parent Educator Network

A key strategy for engaging parents in school improvement has been the Parent Educator Network that meets monthly during the academic year. The Network consists of parent leadership teams representing parents from elementary, middle, and high schools. Most recently, attention was placed on increasing the participation of parent teams from middle and high schools, resulting in the engagement of parent teams from 20 of 22 high schools and 30 of 39 middle schools. Among the themes of the team meetings are the importance of high-level preparation for college for all students, the critical importance of mathematics and science throughout the pre-college years, and the essential role of parents in supporting their children’s education, PreK-16. Other monthly meetings have included:

Parent Leadership Institute

The aim of the two-day Parent Leadership Institutes is to introduce parents to the role they must play in their children’s education and to build leadership skills so that they can actively and effectively influence academic success for all students. Institute participants develop skills needed to participate in school decision-making councils, work directly with teachers and school administrators toward achieving specific goals, and work with teachers to set and achieve high expectations for what their children learn in school. 

During the two days, parents learn about school reform, the urgency and complexity of change, interpreting student assessment data, and ways to be active change agents in their schools and communities. The institutes also include training and practice in decision-making, problem solving, effective communication, and planning.

Parent Brochure (English)

This guide is intended to help parent of students in kindergarten through the twelfth grade undertand a few things about the standards and how to use them to get the very best education for their children.

We hope that this guide will encourage you to share it with your friends and family members so that they can learn more about what they can do to help students and schools succeed.

Downloads

• A Parent's Guide Brochure (English).pdf

Parent Brochure (Spanish)

This guide is intended to help parent of students in kindergarten through the twelfth grade undertand a few things about the standards and how to use them to get the very best education for their children.

We hope that this guide will encourage you to share it with your friends and family members so that they can learn more about what they can do to help students and schools succeed.

Downloads

• A Parent's Guide Brochure (Spanish).pdf

Parent Educator Network

Among the impacts of the Collaborative’s Parent Network are:

• an increasing recognition throughout schools and districts that parents, whatever their economic status, level of education, and language spoken, are essential stakeholders in school improvement efforts;
• a greater understanding among parents that their children need to be prepared at high academic levels and graduate from high school with a full range of options, including college; and,
• a growing number of parents have become actively engaged and assumed leadership roles in efforts to improve student achievement at their children’s schools.

Parent Leadership Institute

Through the Institute, parents begin to perceive themselves as valuable stakeholders in the school and realize that they must act on behalf of all students, not just their own. Other outcomes of the institutes include the following: 

• increased understanding of and advocacy for standards-based instruction and student performance accountability;
• increased capacity of parents to serve as leaders in their school, community, or school district; 
• increased parent participation in efforts to improve student achievement; and,
• increased parent participation in restructuring efforts of low-performing schools.