Parent & Community Engagement

Planning, organizing, and providing ongoing supports to parents is my strength as a school leader.

For my parent project, I held a parent workshop on the various educational options for students with disabilities. The workshop was held at my school’s parent center with approximately twenty parents in attendance. The purpose of the workshop was to empower parents of students with disabilities by providing them with information on the various options available for their children. I aimed to work with parents in equipping our students with disabilities with a wealth of knowledge on various K-12 resources to maximize their academic potential.

During the presentations, I share and demonstrate a variety of ways they may support, guide, and praise their children in school. Discussion on the different ways of exhibiting this came up and were explained. We reviewed different types of speaking with the children and not at the children. The parents truly felt this a valid skills to practice since most have a difficult time applying it at home. I also discussed various ways parents can engage with the school to work collaboratively in meeting their children’s needs.

In particular, we went over several activities that informed them about the school's teaching and learning practices, as well as the overall academic success of students. Additionally, the presentation also covered the numerous resources available in the community to support students’ wellbeing and academic success.

From the parent workshop, I learned the importance of being an attentive listener and a collaborator with our parents. The workshop helped me make grounded adjustments to my leadership practices. By listening to the parent’s concerns, I was able to hear about distinct and individualized ways to address our students’ needs. The parents were able to give excellent suggestions to heighten students with disabilities’ sense of belongingness, which plays a key role in their academic performance. We were also able to brainstorm different ways we could come together to support our teachers in addressing the individual needs of specific students. Through our collaboration, I was able to show the parents their input was vital to our work as practioners.

I will continue to provide engaging parent workshops with my students’ parents. Increasing parent participation is definitely a struggle. The average 24 to 40+ parents that did attend the workshop are just a valid percentage of the parents I have serve. I will continue reaching out to parents, especially to parents that might feel some sort of disconnect with the school. I also want to continue informing parents about higher education. In elementary school, we need to ensure our parents of students that are identified as economically disadvantged continue to learn about the vast amount of opportunities available to students with this needs.

Parent workshops are evidence to the CAPE standards as they create opportunities to build trust between the school, families, and community. The trust holds a positive influence ongoing collaboration between parents and educators to ensure our students who are identified as socioeconomically disadvantaged receive a quality educational experience. This active investment in parent engagement also supports the continuity of collaboration in times of crisis, such as the current COVID-19 crisis. I have always had a strong relationship with the parents that attended the workshop, now during remote learning, those specific parents feel at ease reaching out to me to continue supporting their children. Again, this trust allows the school and parents to exchange information on how to best maximize the academic success of one of our most vulnerable student groups, our resilient students who are economically disadvantaged.