Compassion for Parents

"Compassion is language the deaf can hear and the blind can see" - Mark Twain

UpworthyShift toward inclusion: This short but powerful PSA wants us to be better about understanding disability. (via Accept Difference)

This video discusses inclusion and disability, however it also highlights above all, how we can all be compassionate and make a difference by providing support and understanding.

Relationships and Compassion for Parents

The partnership between parents and school staff are an important element to the success of students. Compassion is important to building relationships with parents, particularly from diverse cultures and social locations. Educators cultivating a culture of compassion between educators and parents and between parents and parents are an investment administration must consider.

The Ontario Equity and Inclusive Strategy highlights the importance of all members of the school community, including parents for student success as their commitment to building a 'just and caring society.'

Ontario Equity and Inclusive Strategy pg. 10

The Ontario Ministry of Education has also produced a policy in 2010 which can be viewed from the Ministry of Education website available in 23 different languages:

Parent Engagement Policy

Within this website, the link to the following policy can also be found:

Parents in Partnerships: A Parent engagement policy for Ontario Schools

Engaging parents is an important aspect as it works to ensure all parent members of the public school system feel their voice is heard and they feel welcomed and including in the decision making process of their school community.

School boards are challenged by the ministry to continuing work to build the relationship between parents by overcoming various barriers.

The Toronto Catholic District School Board, this past 2017-2018 school year, developed an Equity Committee who consulted with various administrators to discuss the barriers they feel are preventing a truly inclusive environment. As I was part of one of the consultation meetings, some ideas which emerged were:

How can we find ways to engage:
- parents who work evenings and are unable to attend parent council meetings or parent held events?
- father's and male guardians into the communities where the trend are mainly mother's or female guardians who are involved
- single parent families who are limited with their time

Childtrend.org reported: "Research shows that students perform better in school if their fathers as well as their mothers are involved, regardless of whether the father lives with the student or not.[9],[10]" Childtrend.org

First, as a system, being able to find ways to dismantle some of the barriers preventing parents from feeling welcome would be our first step as educators and this can begin by beginning the connection with communication. Ensuring we use various ways to reach parents and communicate with them.

Some of the ways we can connect with parents are:

school agendas

classroom apps such as ClassDojo

email

telephone

In communicating with parents, I have found it is beneficial to communicate with parents in the most appropriate way depending on the topic you want to discuss. Some conversations are best suited over the phone or in person, whereas some forms of communication, like reminders and homework are great via email and classroom apps.

Reaching out to parents shows their voice and input is valuable and their is a willingness to build a relationship.

As an administrator, parents who feel their voice is not heard, feel there is a communication break down which then leads to negative discourse. This can be repaired if educators look to continually build the relationship with parents through constant communication.

The Ontario Ministry of Education also works with several parent associations:

The four provincial parent associations who work with parents across the province are:

The Ontario Association of Parents in Catholic Education

The Ontario Federation of Home and School Associations

Parents partenaires en education

People for Education

The Ministry also provides funding for parent initiatives within schools:

Parents Reaching Out (PRO) Grants

Within the Education Act, Ontario Regulation 612 explains the Purpose of Parent Involvement Committees (PIC)

“The purpose of a parent involvement committee is to support, encourage and enhance parent engagement at the board level in order to improve student achievement and well-being” (p. 27) Education Act - Ontario Regulation 162

Joyce Epstein PhD. is a leader in education building partnerships between school and family. She is the director of both the Centre on School, Family, and Community Partnerships and the National Network of Partnership Schools, and a research professor of education and sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

She has developed key factors in building the connection between school and family:

With the resources listed above, the hope is that administration, teachers and system wide leaders of schools, along with parents, will utilize this information as a starting point to build stronger relationships between families and schools with compassion at the forefront. Taking the time to understand each families social location, providing support when necessary, and listening to the needs of our community through our families will build the positive learning environment for student success.

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