Improving Home-school Communications

Improving Home-school Communications PDF Author: Edward Earl Gotts
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
Communicating effectively with parents and the wider community is important to schools for a number of reasons. Community members are more supportive of schools that they feel they understand, and the significant role parents play in their children's education can only be affected by the schools if effective communication exists. Four methods of communication are especially useful with groups of parents: newsletters, open houses, handbooks, and parent organizations. Communicating with parents individually may involve parent-teacher conferences, home visits, interviews, and phone calls or letters. Efforts to inform parents should be continued through their children's secondary school years because parental interest remains high even though their active participation is often reduced. Effective use of the kinds of communication covered here can serve as a starting point for broader school-community relations efforts. These efforts include soliciting citizen involvement as volunteers in the schools and developing partnerships with community businesses. Resource materials providing useful information on various aspects of school-community relations are cited throughout this publication. (PGD)

Improving Home-school Communications

Improving Home-school Communications PDF Author: Edward Earl Gotts
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 32

Get Book Here

Book Description
Communicating effectively with parents and the wider community is important to schools for a number of reasons. Community members are more supportive of schools that they feel they understand, and the significant role parents play in their children's education can only be affected by the schools if effective communication exists. Four methods of communication are especially useful with groups of parents: newsletters, open houses, handbooks, and parent organizations. Communicating with parents individually may involve parent-teacher conferences, home visits, interviews, and phone calls or letters. Efforts to inform parents should be continued through their children's secondary school years because parental interest remains high even though their active participation is often reduced. Effective use of the kinds of communication covered here can serve as a starting point for broader school-community relations efforts. These efforts include soliciting citizen involvement as volunteers in the schools and developing partnerships with community businesses. Resource materials providing useful information on various aspects of school-community relations are cited throughout this publication. (PGD)

Funds of Knowledge

Funds of Knowledge PDF Author: Norma Gonzalez
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135614059
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions. Drawing from both Vygotskian and neo-sociocultural perspectives in designing a methodology that views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge, the funds of knowledge approach facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. This book accomplishes three objectives: It gives readers the basic methodology and techniques followed in the contributors' funds of knowledge research; it extends the boundaries of what these researchers have done; and it explores the applications to classroom practice that can result from teachers knowing the communities in which they work. In a time when national educational discourses focus on system reform and wholesale replicability across school sites, this book offers a counter-perspective stating that instruction must be linked to students' lives, and that details of effective pedagogy should be linked to local histories and community contexts. This approach should not be confused with parent participation programs, although that is often a fortuitous consequence of the work described. It is also not an attempt to teach parents "how to do school" although that could certainly be an outcome if the parents so desired. Instead, the funds of knowledge approach attempts to accomplish something that may be even more challenging: to alter the perceptions of working-class or poor communities by viewing their households primarily in terms of their strengths and resources, their defining pedagogical characteristics. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms is a critically important volume for all teachers and teachers-to-be, and for researchers and graduate students of language, culture, and education.

School, Family, and Community Partnerships

School, Family, and Community Partnerships PDF Author: Joyce L. Epstein
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 1483320014
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description
Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.

Home-to-School Connections Guide

Home-to-School Connections Guide PDF Author: George Lucas Educational Foundation
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 15

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Book Description
Communication between home and school is good for kids. Keeping families up-to-date about upcoming events is important, but it's not enough to fully engage parents as partners. When schools and families really work together, that sets the stage for all kinds of benefits. The National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education reports that family-school partnerships lead to gains for just about everyone involved in education. What's more, students with involved parents tend to do better regardless of family background. From better social skills to more regular attendance to increased graduation rates, kids of all socioeconomic levels show gains across a variety of indicators when their families connect with school, according to research by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. This practical guide shares tips, tools, and strategies to strengthen the bonds between schools, families, and communities. Many suggestions have come from "Edutopia" community members who have contributed a host of good ideas in blogs and online discussion groups (edutopia.org/groups). Technology tools offer great potential for connecting home and school. Several tips focus on ways to use these tools to bring parents closer to the classroom. This guide includes suggestions for using popular social-media tools such as Facebook as well as technology platforms designed specifically for school settings. This guide offers ten tips: (1) Go where your parents are; (2) Welcome everyone; (3) Being there, virtually; (4) Smart phones, smart schools; (5) Seize the media moment; (6) Make reading a family affair; (7) Bring the conversation home; (8) Student-led parent conferences; (9) Get families moving; and (10) Build parent partnerships. (Contains 30 online resources.).

No More Mumbo Jumbo

No More Mumbo Jumbo PDF Author: Patricia Weinzapfel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781939550736
Category : Communication and education
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
"Let's face it: educators speak a language all their own filled with complicated words, terms and acronyms. They call it 'Educationese' but to parents and caregivers, it's just Mumbo Jumbo. This book uses the principles of broadcast journalism to help educators recognize and translate Mumbo Jumbo into clear, concise, effective communications. It's designed to help them form rich relationships with parents and caregivers. Readers will learn how to use the right words, tone and body language to engage families. [This] is not a typical education book. It is short, simple, practical and easy to read. It's no wonder. It was written by a former broadcast journalist with a passion for families and for translating Educationese"--Page [4] of cover.

How to Build Communication Success in Your School

How to Build Communication Success in Your School PDF Author: Karen Dempster
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 131528216X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
This book provides a step-by-step guide for best practice communication within schools for parents, governors and the community. Aligned to the National Standards of Excellence for Headteachers, it sets out an ‘inside out’ approach to creating and communicating a compelling vision for schools, building leadership communication skills and supporting the management of day-to-day communications in schools. Packed full of strategies to help attract and retain the best teachers, improve the effectiveness of leadership and management, build the reputation of the school, work with parents and achieve better academic results, this is essential reading for headteachers and school leaders.

Creating Welcoming Schools

Creating Welcoming Schools PDF Author: JoBeth Allen
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 9780807747896
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This engaging and rich resource details how schools and diverse families throughout the country have formed partnerships that support and enhance student learning. It is designed for teachers who care deeply about students and welcome diverse families as partners; for parents who want to be active partners in educating their children; and for administrators in diverse schools or districts who know there is no quick fix for building lasting partnerships among families, schools, and the community. Going far beyond traditional “parent involvement programs,” this essential volume: Offers exciting ways teachers and parents together can explore their rich and diverse cultural perspectives through storytelling and cultural memoir. Shows how to establish and sustain genuine dialogue at school conferences, open houses, and through classroom projects such as home–school journals. Suggests ways families, schools, and communities can collaborate for democratic schools and a more democratic society. Includes “Action Opportunities” throughout for readers to actively engage with the ideas and make them their own. Links these partnerships with research demonstrating that building respectful and trusting relationships leads to increased student achievement.

School

School PDF Author: Illinois State University. Center for the Study of Education Policy
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
The research is clear that parents' involvement in their child's education improves outcomes in areas such as learning, attendance, behavior, and graduation rates. Although almost any parent involvement brings improvements in student outcomes, parent involvement with their child's learning at home is most helpful in increasing student learning. Increased and meaningful communication between home and school enhances parent involvement. Illinois schools are using various forms of technology to increase school/home communication, including voice mail, e-mail, school and classroom websites, and web access to individual student information such as attendance, grades, and student portfolios; however, this use is not consistent or widespread. In February 2003, Governor Rod R. Blagojevich called on all Illinois schools to adopt the National PTA standard for parental involvement to ensure that communication between home and school is frequent and meaningful. The Illinois Century Network (ICN) provided funding to the Center for Application of Information Technology (CAIT) at Western Illinois University to develop applications and the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University to survey schools across Illinois to determine the extent of the use of technology for communicating with parents of students in Illinois schools. The major findings are presented in this paper. Based upon the findings from the literature, state data, cost study, surveys, interviews, and focus groups, seven recommendations are given: (1) Improved school/home communication would benefit students, their families and schools; however, multiple communication methods and formats are needed to meet the varying capacities and communication needs of Illinois families; (2) Illinois can promote cost-effective solutions that build upon the variety of existing student information systems, parent communication tools, and grading systems already in place rather than mandating a one-size-fits-all system. The State should seek to provide communication solutions that meet interoperability standards and are compatible with as many current school communication systems and vendor products as is feasible; (3) Illinois should make use of the existing ICN infrastructure to provide a menu of support services from which schools may selectively choose based upon their priorities, capacity, and needs. Steps toward implementation include assuring a basic level of access and capacity for all schools; providing services to support the activities for which technology is most useful to increase parental involvement; and helping schools share best practices related to school/home communication; (4) State-sponsored school/home communication initiatives must recognize the current financial constraints under which Illinois schools are operating. To address cost issues, the state could provide financial support through targeted grants tied to specific goals that seek to increase the frequency of school/home communications from current levels; (5) School/home initiatives will need to address issues related to personnel time for training and implementing home/school communication systems. Support will be required for schools to train personnel and parents in order to accomplish reasonable goals to increase the frequency and extent of school/home communication; (6) In collaboration with parents and families, schools should establish policies and practices that establish a framework for school/home communication related to student academic performance and development to ensure consistent expectations. Explicit policy goals would also help schools identify budget priorities; and (7) Any new statewide program/initiative must recognize the cultural and economic differences in the schools and homes across the state and the potential for technology to widen the digital divide rather than close it. Appendices include: (1) School to Home Survey; (2) Cost Study; (3) Parent Focus Group; (4) Principal Interview Sets of Questions; (5) Technical Representative Interview Script; (6) Resources for Schools; (7) Hardware and Software Requirements; and (8) Software Vendor List. (Contains 14 tables and 9 figures.) [Funding for this paper was provided by the Illinois Century Network.].

The School-Home Connection

The School-Home Connection PDF Author: Rosemary A. Olender
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 141296864X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Research has consistently shown that student success is directly related to the strength of the relationships between parents and schools. This book provides teachers and administrators with tools to build a foundation for student success based on positive relationships with students and their families. Drawing on original research and their professional experiences, the authors identify the common sources of both negative and positive school-home relationships. The book presents a comprehensive approach to building closer connections and includes: - Tools to help educators develop a deeper understanding of the communities they serve - Strategies for improving interpersonal skills and communication skills - A chapter on the importance of documenting and celebrating school events - Guidelines for creating three distinct levels of parental participation in schools With suggestions for cultivating a community network of support services and a summary of lessons for forging constructive relationships, The School-Home Connection is an essential tool for educators looking to strengthen the learning community and increase student achievement.

Schools and Families

Schools and Families PDF Author: Sandra Christenson
Publisher: Guilford Press
ISBN: 9781572306547
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
"This is a resource for school-based practitioners, including psychologists, counselors, social workers, and special education consultants; clinical child psychologists; inservice and preservice teaches; and school administrators. It will serve as a text in courses on school consultation, building home-school partnerships, parent counseling, and parent education."--BOOK JACKET.