Parent & Community Engagement

Working with parents has always been a joy for me. I truly believe that it is important to see parents as partners. Parents play an integral part in the education of their students. By working with parents, we are engaging in collaborative work that will benefit students. Additionally, we are including parents in the dialogue and we are listening to their needs.

At Loreto, my goal was to do a series of parent workshops with the intent of building parent engagement. The parent workshops had different titles and focus areas. As part of the Kindergarten Readiness program, I focused on our youngest learners for the Parent workshops, but these workshops were always open to parents of children of all ages and in all grade levels.

I stumbled upon some difficulty with this.  At the time of this, Loreto's Parent Center was undergoing a renovation. This meant that any and all school meetings and trainings were being held at the PLC Room.  This included professional development for teachers and the ESL class bing offered to families. This created a bit of struggle for space. However, I was able to schedule  and present our first workshop in November. 

This workshop was titled "Setting Routines at Home." The goal of this workshop was to help parents set up a schedule with routines so that their children would be able to be successful at home with homework, play time, chores, and bedtime. This would support their students so that there would be a smooth transition between school and home. The parent workshop was very well received by all parents. We had fifteen participants.  Because I opened the workshop to all parents, I had parents of kids in kindergarten all the way to 5th grade. The workshop was differentiated and parents were able to adapt the making of schedules to fit the age of their child(ren). Some parents even decided to put themselves on a schedule to help with the family routines. It was a successful parent workshop.

The second workshop that I planned was a workshop around the Social Emotional needs of our students and their families.  In talking to the principal, I learned that this is an area of need for Loreto's families. This community has been greatly affected by COVID, and many of our families are struggling.  The workshop that I planned was  titled: “Helping Children Deal with Anxiety.” This parent workshop brought to light how many of our students deal with anxiety on a daily basis.  After Covid, we have seen how much our students need support in the area of Social Emotional Learning. By addressing the topic of Anxiety through a Social Emotional Lens, I was providing some tangible ideas and steps that parents could take to help their children manage their anxiety. I also had a read aloud ready to go, as a way to engage parents in this conversation.  However, on the day of the workshop, no one showed up. My partner, a PSW, and I waited for 30 minutes, but no one came.  In retrospect, it may have been the timing of the workshop. This workshop was scheduled one week after the LAUSD strike.  I believe this impacted our workshop.  Unfortunately, though we tried to reschedule this workshop, it never materialized. 

Though I was only able to provide one workshop to Loreto, I saw how engaged our families were. Bringing in families and community members is accomplishing the schools’ vision of equitable schooling and continuous improvement that includes the academic, linguistic, cultural, social-emotional, mental and physical health supports that are needed to succeed in school. Additionally, by working with parents, I built trust and worked collaboratively with families and community to promote a sense of shared responsibility and accountability for achieving the goal of graduating every student ready for college and careers. The parents were engaged in the workshop, and they were excited to make commitments based on their learning of the parent workshop. The reflections they filled out after the session also indicated that the workshops were valuable and worthwhile.  For me, the learning I received was also illuminating.  I truly saw the benefit of learning from my parents’ experiences, from listening to them, engaging with them, and SEEING them.  It was such a positive experience. 

In reflection, I see that as a leader I need to be aware that things will not always go smoothly, that there will be bumps in the road. I need to be flexible and mindful of these challenges. I also need to have a back-up plan.  Maybe, I could have seen what other room was available for the workshops.  Maybe, I could have attached a workshop to a day where parents were already on campus for a school event.  For example, I could have scheduled the workshop on dealing with anxiety on the day that parents came to see their children perform or even on Open House. The idea is to be creative with engaging parents whenever there is opportunity for inviting to join us as they become partners in the education of their children. The voices of our families is very important and I must do whatever I can to bring parents and families to campus. 

 Besides having the challenge of finding a space for providing these workshops. I also faced the challenge of time management. As one of several Kindergarten Readiness Instructional Coaches in LAUSD, I am charged with supporting multiple school sites. The Parent Workshops that I created specifically for Loreto ES were based on the school's needs around parent engagement. I was committed to ensuring that the school received these workshops while maintaining the appropriate services to the other schools assigned to me. The thing I would do differently is to have a year-long plan, with dates scheduled at the beginning of the year so that the parent workshops could be more streamlined. This means I would meet with the administrator at the beginning of the year and propose my year-long plan. Then, I would calendar everything, with the idea and understanding that flexibility is necessary and that things could be moved around, if needed. Working with families was a very positive experience.

Parent Comments on the Workshop Reflections

“It was great to learn about the importance of setting schedules and routines.” 

“It was an eye opener on how long a habit takes to form.” 

“Me pareció muy interesante el taller, por que aprendi como establecer las rutinas para mis hijos.”