Parents, there is a good chance your school is squandering one of its most valuable resources – YOU. Our expectations are generally based on a Leave it to Beaver mindset of parent organizations focused on bake sales and walkathons that raise a couple thousand bucks or ensuring there are parent chaperones for field trips. These things are cute but they don’t count when it comes to the core work of student learning. Our principals need parent organizations ready to spend their time on what really matters for young people – the quality of instruction and the degree to which each child receives it.
So where can parents do the most good for their school community?
They can collaborate on the school improvement plan to set the priorities and path for the school. Parent feedback on the improvement plan is often just a check box to confirm the school did something. This could be sending out a survey or hosting a meeting a few parents attend. Effective schools have parents on the design team and engaging throughout implementation of the plan. This helps ensure the activities on the plan reflect the needs of students and it provides natural accountability as school leaders report to families on how the plan is going. This one move can help ensure the plan is meaningful and doesn’t just end up on a shelf.
We should also strengthen the bonds amongst families and with the school. Parents are good at fostering connections with the families they see regularly. This usually includes their child’s friends, kids in the same clubs or sports, or the other parents who volunteer regularly. However, our principals need us to go beyond our natural siloes and strengthen connections across all groups of families. Who better than parents to be responsible for ensuring every family is known and feels like they belong?
At my school several families launched a parent coffee hour each week during and immediately after school drop off. I would stop by as principal and informally hear from parents but they were mostly there to connect with each other. What was unique was they had a rule that, in our school where families spoke over 30 different languages, you had to invite someone who spoke a different language than you to the next meeting. They also made sure the coffee reflected the different global preparation preferences of our community. I benefited so much from the wisdom of this group, but most importantly the group members benefitted from each other’s insights as their children progressed through the grades.
Parents, take ownership of family learning. It’s not enough that families build strong connections. Those connections need to lead to greater student learning. Principals need their parent groups to identify parent learning needs and design the experiences to support those needs. Principals and teachers can be resources and subject matter experts, but parents know best how they learn and what they need to learn to support their kids. Anything else is paternalistic.
This is particularly true when it comes to data and information about students. Whether it is about grade level learning expectations or how to make the most out of report card conferences, parents need to drive conversations about what data is meaningful and how it might inform decision they make at home. Parents want to do whatever it takes to make sure their child is ready for what comes next; they don’t want to be told that if it isn’t true due to grade inflation. With parent groups increasing their responsibility for parent learning, it helps ensure the focus in on performance and not placating parents.
I’m not saying not to bake or organize candy apple sales if that’s your passion. I am asking you to consider how you can spend just as much time influencing learning outcomes. This investment will help reduce teacher stress and increase your child’s enjoyment of school. Good principals don’t want compliant parents who aren’t a problem. They want partners who will push them and their team to be their best. The best principals recognize that the push can look a lot of different ways and some might come across as off-putting. These principals don’t let that stop them from working with the parent and getting them engaged with the right parent organization.
