Noelle Kreider's List: Parent Involvement

• When we’re involving parents, ideas and energy tends to come from the schools and from government mandates. We tend to sell ideas.
• When we’re engaging parents, ideas tend to be elicited from parents by school staff in the context of developing trusting relationships.
• When we’re involving parents, we might be irritating them – pushing them to do something about what we as staff might perceive as important.
• When we’re engaging parents, they are challenged to do something about what they feel is important to them.

• When we’re involving parents, school staff can fall into the role of a social worker who does things for parents, or who tends to tell them what they should be doing with their child.

   

  When we’re engaging parents, school staff act more as community organizers who help parents do things for themselves, and who elicit from parents ideas about what parents and school staff could be doing to better help their child and their community.
• Most studies have shown that just about any kind of increased connection between schools and parents is beneficial for the student. What I am saying is that parent engagement is better, and offers opportunities for transformational beneficial change – for the school, for the community, for the family and for the student.

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