Parent Involvement
Family involvement refers to activities families engage in to support their children’s education (Drake, 2000). When families become involved in their children’s education, students, schools, and communities all benefit because strong home-school partnerships help all stakeholders focus on the real issue of high student achievement (Caplan, 2000).
What Works Best?
All is not that simple when it comes to parent involvement. While the literature linking parent involvement to student achievement is extensive, according to Desimone (1999), researchers do not have a totally clear understanding of how patterns and effects of parental involvement differ across racial and ethnic cultures. Chavkin (1993) states that several studies reported that low-income, minority parents often have different beliefs about parents’ roles in school involvement. Therefore, an understanding of cross-cultural and cross-area issues is important as we proceed.
In examining the success of family involvement initiatives, Blazer (2005) draws on researchers who advocate that all types of family involvement are effective in raising students’ levels of achievement. Some studies have found that parents’ involvement in different roles over time has the greatest impact on students’ academic success (Caplan, 2000). Family participation in well-designed at-home activities has also been found to have an especially strong positive effect on student achievement (Epstein and Jansorn, 2004). There are numerous ways families can become involved in children’s education. The following types of family involvement have been published by the National PTA as National Standards for Parent/Family Involvement Programs (Epstein and Jansorn, 2004) which argues that involvement programs should include activities from all six areas of involvement.
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Parent education
Parent education •Communication between schools and families
Communication between schools and families •Volunteer opportunities
Volunteer opportunities •At-home learning activities
At-home learning activities •Decision-making opportunities
Decision-making opportunities •Collaborating with the community
Collaborating with the community PRAISE Parent Academy
The support and training of parents and guardians are central to the PRAISE approach to developing young men. As such, parental/guardian involvement is mandatory and has proven to be a key to our success. We recognize that young African American males are not inherently bad people. In addition to being stigmatized by negative images abound in the media and other forms of pop culture, our Black youth face multiple challenges when it comes to their health, safety, and well-being. While these threats are real, they often stem from family, community and, in fact, societal dynamics associated with racism, poverty, and violence that have a history predating the lives of our youth. In addition to the educational components discussed above, our approach to developing strong Black men is to help them and their families unpack their historical wounds and engage in relational healing that leads to empowerment and accountability to self, community, and society as a whole.
Therefore, PRAISE has created an environment where parents feel welcomed and they work in collaboration with our entire learning community to support the development of our scholars. We strongly believe that parents are our children's first and most important teachers. They have important information regarding their child's strengths, weaknesses, goals, and fears that the school may not be aware of. This information is extremely important as it relates to our scholars educational experience. It is our desire to personalize the educational experience for each scholar to the best of our ability. In order for PRAISE to effectively address this goal, a strong relationship between the school and home is necessary. Therefore, as a requirement for admission, it is mandatory for all parents/guardians to attend the Parent Academy. In addition, parents are responsible for completing 10 volunteer hours per academic year.
For more information about the Parent Academy or for general issues about
working with African American males, please email Richard Rowe at rrowe84@aol.com.
