Parental Support and Community Involvement
Introduction
Parental support refers to all activities and policies undertaken by parents as they push for better education or opportunities for their children’s development (Williams & Sanchez, 2017). The primary purpose of parental support is to help improve a student’s academic performance. However, according to social work reports, parental involvement reduces the chances of school absenteeism and minimizes cases of substance abuse among students. Not only does parental support contribute to improved student achievement, but it also leads to improved behaviour and social skills. According to Taylor (2014), community involvement refers to the process of bringing together positive and significant changes to the community. Community involvement offers an opportunity for students to become active members of society. When it comes to overall school improvement, there is a need for parental support and community contribution to social wellbeing. Whereas one of the significant issues of concern is the lack of parental consent and lack of community involvement, there is a need to look at a plan that would accommodate these needs.
Objectives
Schools are the focal point for community involvement and participation. In that sense, there is a need to address the lack of parental support and community involvement in education. Parental consent aims to monitor a student and facilitate the assessment of health, nutrition, behaviour, and hygiene (Yeager, 2009). Several strategies can be utilized in this program to collect data from parents and community members. The quantitative research method is best utilize to acquire accurate data. The first step is to use is administering surveys that incorporate structured questionnaires to retrieve quantitative data. The questionnaires can be administered either by telephone or face to face. The next second step in to acquire data is by observation. Observation includes using the sense of sight and hearing to collect quantitative data.
Identification of Need
There exists a big gap between the community and students in terms of involvement. According to Masrour (2010), there is a need to initiate and implement effective strategies that are friendly while considering the weak relationship between parents, teachers, students, and the community at large. According to recent surveys in American schools, students, parents, and teachers agree that there is a need for collaborative participation. Data reports reveal that parental engagement with students in the US has increased dramatically in the past five years.
Nonetheless, few schools suffer adversely from lack of parental support and community involvement. These schools are running independently with no support at all from parents or the community. Lack of parental consent and community involvement in such schools leads to massive dropouts and unruly student behaviour leading to poor academic performance. Not only do students suffer from addictive substance abuse but also mental health issues. Both internal and external factors surround the life of a student at school. Nonetheless, lack of community involvement and lack of parental support have necessitated proactive measures to address this menace (Griffin, 2012). All in all, there is a need to establish the right framework that implements strategies towards a sustainable parent and community involvement
Identification of Support
Parents and community members must assume specific duties to become involved in the education of children. One of the best approaches for the inclusion of the community and parents is through volunteerism. In that sense, students can relate more since it is more practical. The first measure that can have an impactful meaning is to use parents as a critical resource in their children (Sugai, 2016). Parents can indulge in home learning. The inclusion of parents in learning activities while at home increases the child’s productivity. For example, parents can ask questions to children, thus improving home learning. The next measure is utilizing parents and community members as advocates for their children’s education through school restructuring. School administrators should build on parents’ strengths. In this way, there will be a focus on quality education for all students. Moreover, parents and community members should act as active participants in nationwide based partnership programs. In that sense, school administrators are encouraged to embrace community members’ diversity in the design of practices and programs.
Research data given by the Department of Education reveals that almost every school has 45 teachers. However, the number does not include special counsellors, instructional trainers, or any other extracurricular educator. Out of the 45 teachers, 91% are experienced trainers. In that regard, several parents and community members should receive training to work with these teachers. Research data shows that the US’s absenteeism rate is about 38% less this year (Goldstein, 2014). Due to the students’ low attendance, concerned parents have asked schools to involve professional therapeutic help. Not only can community members report on students seen buying drugs but also educate the youth on the risks of school absenteeism and drug abuse. Drug abuse in the community will only bring about negative growth and regression of prosperity.
Due to a lack of involvement from parents and community members regarding student welfare, adverse effects such as drug abuse and absenteeism. All parents and community members should participate in school programs such as Open House, Winter Concert, Baccalaureate, Meet the Mascot, Dean Sykes Motivational Talk, Bullying Seminar, Health/Career Fair, and Graduation. Schools should consider engaging parents and community members through school and community partnerships (Lemon & Watson, 2015). Furthermore, remediation and tutoring services to students should begin before and after school. Also, providing faculty and staff with on-going professional development is a positive step in bridging the gap between schools and the community. Last but not least is providing students with mentorships through the relationships established with partners in education. All these measures will ensure adequate parental support and community involvement in the school’s improvement efforts.
Documentation of Resources
For better policies in favour of the school’s improvement, there is a need to gather resources needed to develop and sustain parent and community involvement programs (Roeser, 2012). The first material that is vital to the school’s improvement is adequate funding. Across the United States, proper funding for the development and evaluation of programs is lacking. There should be sufficient monetary support from relevant stakeholders to ensure program development and success. Furthermore, for effective implementation of policies, there has to be enough personnel or staff. Once a useful and practical program is running, there is a need to employ several community members or parents to operate. Not only will the staff work hand in hand with students, school personnel, and community members, but also be able to create employment opportunities.
Training is a crucial resource needed to develop and sustain community and parent involvement programs. Both parents and community members need to receive some training for participation in a thriving community and parent involvement program. In that sense, parents can acquire parenting ideas, while community members can gain leadership skills to help children develop literacy skills (Meiklejohn, 2012). Coordination is another vital resource required for successful parent and community involvement programs. Parents, school personnel, and community members are the focal point of collaborative development; therefore have to work together to realize the set goals. All in all, coordination ensures that the community efforts for the children’s continuity and more significant benefit.
Method of Evaluation
There is a need to develop program evaluation strategies before implementing the parent and community involvement program. According to Kaplan (2016), using predictable practices like disciplinary action due to absenteeism from school has become a recursive tendency that has triggered the learning structure to move its mechanisms deliberately. Parental support and community involvement are vital in the implementation of disciplinary measures. Moreover, strict policies are predictable exclusionary penalties tailored by the final product expulsion of students from the present instructive setting (Brown, 2017). Strict guidelines were supposed to build a peaceful learning background among students, parents, and community members. School improvement should involve the active participation of parents and community members regarding their children’s wellbeing.
Furthermore, principals deduce stringent policies. The community members and parents have a mandate to contribute their opinions on better systems that are to be implemented by schools. School punishment has become an increasing alarm and an extremely crucial issue related to a community involvement program’s effective running. Strenuous feedback in student’s discipline by principals at most times hinders the school’s accomplishment (Bear, 2013). In that sense, the school administrations have to be very careful in choosing their community-based agendas and policies when seeking parental support and community involvement. However, slight misbehaving crimes should not necessarily need parental intervention but require a student’s counsellor to mitigate.
Beachum (2014) states that all learning institutions are open systems with a varying degree of communication with environmental entities or stakeholders. In that sense, he suggests that the essential elements of available systems provide a conduit for analyzing and synthesizing the educational system’s meaningful processes and defining key roles and responsibilities for school administrators, parents, and community members involved in the described methods. The administrators’ primary focus is to integrate the main resources to ascertain the school’s temporary and long-term goals. A fundamental transformation is increasing meaningful interactions between students, parents, and community members. By increasing instruction, teaching and learning will take place daily, thus allowing students to graduate with their cohort to become productive community members. In an open system, outputs are determined by attaining goals and objectives. According to Lewis (2014), a compilation of several community-based reports results tends to vary from school to school. Variables to consider are achievement levels of parent involvement, teacher accountability ratings from informal or formal evaluations, truancy and dropout rates, faculty and staff turnover, and community partnership.
Current Research from Gallup Poll
According to the 47th Annual Gallup Poll, parent support and community involvement are increasingly becoming crucial in school improvement and effectiveness (Hodges, 2015). Currently, more parents and community members are willingly volunteering in child development processes. At the same time, parents and community members may participate in school activities, events, and conferences. Moreover, current research from the Gallup poll reveals that parent support that goes far beyond involvement could significantly progress in the community. Parental consent and community involvement ensure a student’s psychological growth and stability, leading to better academic performance. Parents completely dedicated in supporting their children are emotionally attached and rationally attached to their learning institution. Parental involvement, therefore, creates a mutually beneficial relationship between schools and the environment.
New Gallup Poll research points out several driving factors of parental engagement. According to Hodges (2015), some of these factors include strong leadership skills in schools, good academic performance, positive school routine and culture, personalized coaching of students, and availability of numerous opportunities that contribute to the child’s success. All in all, the Gallup Poll is essential in guiding parental support and community involvement for schools’ improvement.
Conclusion
The parent and community involvement plan are a proof-based program that defines core program rudiments and techniques that assist in ensuring the programs’ eminence. The program’s objective is to increase parental support in schools and engage community members in active participation in development. To bring the uppermost eminent program, personal discipline and fidelity to guidelines set must be an inclusive portion to guarantee the program’s sustainability and efficiency. In conclusion, a student should have undergone several prolonged exposures to community activities by the time graduate from school. All people in society must deal with stress at various levels every day; however, the younger generation is more susceptible to adverse psychosocial and emotional effects. As an intervention measure, school administrators should work together with parents and community members to ensure that coercive strategies are implemented towards a sustainable environment. With proper monitoring and regulation, stress can be mitigated all around the community. All in all, we should hope for a better future whereby parents offer their support to schools while community members actively participate in the school’s development and social wellbeing.
References
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