Parental Involvement Plan

Developing partnerships

It can be difficult to look at the amount of children you have in a classroom and the amount of parents and believe you can ever achieve a level of partnering with them all. At the starting point it is important to remember having a healthy relationship between teachers and parents is for the benefit of the students learning and the teacher’s ability to educate to the needs of the children individually and collectively.

Parents will not always feel connected into what is going on in their children’s lives. Teachers can help by sending daily or weekly reports on what is being learned in the classroom along with tips and ideas for the kids to do at home as a family. Such tools help aid the process of learning and school work becomes homework.

Teachers need to know a little about what is going on in the lives of the kids they are teaching every day. This knowledge helps them to develop lesson plans and strategies designed to specifically hit points the kids will understand and want to learn. Not everything in the classroom will be fun for every student, but the teacher can work to make sure everything is presented in ways to engage the imaginations and excitement of the students.

A classroom is a community of individuals brought together for a year to learn and develop new skills. The teacher is the leader and head of the group and is in the place of getting to know the kids and being able to help them learn more. Students who know they are appreciated as individuals will function better in the group. Once they know they are a partner in the overall learning plan, it gives a kid -confidence and assurance they are not alone.

• Creating a social media outlet for the classroom can help boost communication and an easy way to share between the teacher and parents. This can be done with a private Facebook page designed for the class. Other online formats could include a blog and standard teacher website. Most schools have web space already reserved for teachers but most of the time it hardly gets used.
• Setting up a positive relationship with parents is a key to helping students be successful in school. This can include texting, email, and calling parents frequently. If the teacher is calling the parents to give positive feedback it can be easier to approach a difficult topic when it comes.
• Having the parents assigned to come to the class and share can be a major motivator. I plan to have a full classroom library available for the classroom and will invite parents to come in whenever they want to read to the students and encourage their learning gains.
• Parents will have access to contact me and I will try to get back with the parent within a quick time frame to answer questions or concerns. The gradebook will also be accessible to parents to see how their child is doing in the class. Make up work or extra credit will also be possible for students who need to improve on their learning.
• I will use remind texting to send reminders to parents or class events or if supplies are needed for an activity. I want the students to have as many opportunities to have fun and learn as possible and regularly invite parents to help.
• A youtube channel will be created for me to upload a video of my lessons for the parents to review or the children who miss a class to help them keep caught up. This may not happen for every lesson but at least once a week. There will also be links to other helpful videos to help the learning process.
• I welcome parents anytime to come and volunteer time in the classroom. I will take advantage of parents who wish to use their organization and creative skills to help with projects and general help in my classroom.
• Weekly home communication will occur through the use of a newsletter sent home. Every week a student will be highlighted along with some kind of achievement they did that week. We want to honor each other and show we respect hard work in the classroom. Home communication is crucial to effective team building between parents and teacher..