Parents as Partners or Parents as Customers

1
Parents as PartnersorParents as Customers?

• Teacher Leadership School Improvement
• Kathy Furr Russell Sparks
• Spring, 2005

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Traditional Roles (Customer)

• Only a few vocal parents have input into the
  school's planning and learning process
• Input from parents is most often only to ensure
  that their child receives what the parent wants
  them to have
• Most parents are involved only when contacted for
  conferences
• Parents are recruited to serve the school through
  leading fund raisers, working in classrooms and
  donation of time
• Schools may have community-related goals, but
  only when they meet their own goals or the
  community is not consulted in development of
  these goals
• Parents typically support separating and labeling
  of children and traditional instructional
  assessment
• Business are recruited to serve the school as a
  function of their charitable work

3
Traditional Roles (Customer)(Cont)

• Little communication between schools with schools
  only working together when hosting special events
  (i.e. Science Fair)
• Universities use schools as experts to conduct
  research
• Social Services are called on to handle
  emergencies that schools are unable to deal with

4
Reciprocal Roles (Partner)

• Communication is established between school and
  parent to define what is expected of parents and
  how parents would like to participate
• Parent communication is expanded to include
  discussion of their life goals for their child
  and educational hopes for how the school would
  benefit all students
• Classrooms are opened to visitors
• Student work is displayed and openly discussed
• Teachers and parents discuss student learning
  behavior at home and at school and discuss how
  both situations can be improved
• A system is in place to gather parent opinions,
  to distrubute information about new learning
  methods and educate parents on topics of interest

5
Reciprocal Roles (Partner)(cont)

• Parents are included in discussion about the
  issues that face the school rather than being
  protected from these issues
• Extensive efforts are made to include and involve
  all parents
• Parents are encouraged to reflect on their skills
  and determine what information they need to
  become more involved in the education process
• Steps are taken to determine how each group can
  give and receive, how each group can learn from
  each other, and how each group can work as
  partners to construct knowledge

6
Roles of ParentsSummary
From Leadership Capacity For Lasting School
Improvement, L. Lambert
7
Reflective Questions
Answer the following questions to gain insight
into your school progress in the journey toward
partnerships with parents.

• What are the expectations of parents in your
  school?
• Do the parents share the Schools vision?
• How would you describe the amount of freedom that
  parents have to walk through your class rooms?
• In what ways, if any, are your parents teachers
  at home?
• What methods does your school use to invite
  parents to share opinions?
• Are your parents informed about new learning
  techniques?