What we're trying to do with the types of involvement is suggest that we think we know that all schools must attend to these five types. That it is possible to attend to these five types that we have to find out what the practices hundreds of practices under each type mean for kids and families and schools and that we have to go about this plan fully, you know, and it even was one of the parents this morning who mentioned that if a parent has a teacher who keeps them informed and involved but that parent goes around talking to other parents and says things like why don't we lucky this year Johnny has mrs. So-and-so for a teacher and she really keeps us informed. We know just how to help Johnny when he's having problems. We have good communication we go through this Praise of the teacher. And it's almost like luck. If your child happens to have mrs. Sew and sew and that's cool. You know, things are going to be good that year because mrs. Song So recognizes this partnership with the family. But Jonny may never have another misses. So and so all the years that he is in school and then it becomes a matter of chance of whether the family really can help or not. What we're trying to do what you were going to try to do when your school's is get this out of luck. It's going to get out of rhetoric and it's going to get out of luck. And it's going to get into regular systematic teaching and administrative practice. Now. Why isn't it clear now? Why are we here? We've known some of this for at least a decade and much longer the early years. Why aren't we doing this now? Someone asked me that one time is a g. I don't know, but I hope we don't come back 20 years from now and have the same conversation. We know why we're not doing it now and it's nobody's fault really. Well, it is someone's fault but deans of Education don't like it when I mention them by name. We know that we aren't doing it now in part because this is not a regular systematic part of teacher or administrative training. We know there are few courses out there that we'll talk about what we're going to talk about this morning or all day. And teachers are not the only ones who need this information to principals and superintendents needed to now we have talented folks like the folks you heard from this morning if somehow gathered this information on their own. Or taking a special course because usually this special and folks just like your examples this morning or early childhood folks like neither his nose has been happening for a long time. But remember principal number to K to 12 how many K to 12 people who are in this room have taken a full course on the ways to involve parents productively in their children's education all across the grades and in all subject areas. And came away with the practices necessary to put this in place regardless of grade level or cultural group where you are teaching. There's anybody here like that. We want to stand up and capture them and bottle them anyone here like that. We know this is not the case and we're working at that one of my agendas for the next two years is to get this into pre-service education at administrator training. So I'm working hard because we think we know enough now to create this necessary background so that people coming into the school's the first day not only will know how to make 3 reading groups. Everyone knows how to make 3 reading groups the first day they come into looks cool, but they will know that the kids in those reading groups are going home to families who can help them make those reading groups more effective. So we're beginning to work at that particular part of it. Nevertheless. The five types of parent involvement are in your school's right. Now. They are everywhere in these occasions of luck. They happened now and then in a teacher's room once in awhile with a couple of parents of people think about it and they choose to do it. It's a now and then once in awhile kind of thing and we're going to make it systematic all teachers clear and planful and evaluate herbal. That's what we're going to do. So I want you to think as we go through these five types. Of your schools that you either work with or your kids are in or you're responsible for your teaching in and I want you to think of where these practices are strong right now. Where are they strong today? Because they are there their they're in some teacher some grade level once in a while. They're there. I want you to identify those strengths right now. And I also want you to be thinking of where they are not. Where are these practices not right now? And what parents are not being reached in the schools in which you work because it is that where are we starting from that will enable you to plan for the next 3 years where you want to be in 1893? The first type of involvement I call the basic obligations of families the basic obligations of families recognize that it is true that in some cases the spheres of influence our separate, even when we overlap those spheres. There are some things the family does on their own that don't concern the schools just as there are some things that the schools do that don't really concern the families and those things we know are like providing health and safety and nutrition and a home for children and that we want parents to understand parenting skills all across the grades parents are expected to know how to parent across the grades. We would like families at all grade levels to know how to create the home conditions of support for learning that are appropriate at each grade level who's are finding that if they look really honestly families do not get this information very well right now. Families do not really know. What is the difference in the home conditions that are necessary to support learning for a first grader a third grader a 5th grader a 7th grader for a 9th grader. They may not know the appropriate discipline skills that they need to do to change across the grade so that how you discipline a 6th grader is different from how you discipline a 3rd grader and we expect them to know this schools are recognizing the families. Don't get this information very well. And if they don't have it, it makes life harder for the kids in school to be students. So schools are investing in helping families understand how the schools change across the grades how their parenting skills may change across the grades, you know, I direct the Middle grades program at my center, but when my son was in early adolescent entering a middle school I didn't know what was going on with this child and I'm supposed to understand all of this and help other people understand. I just sit back and get a handle on the middle school what it is to be an early adolescent what the peer group means and how the family is still important. We have to help families to get this every year a first grader is not a second grader is not a third grader. How do we get how do we get that information to parents from where do they get this information? The only single place that is common for all parents at all grade levels is the school. most schools deal with this topic with workshops They'll have a workshop on. a successful first grader how to prepare your child for tests discipline in the Middle grades drug abuse prevention family pregnancy prevention all kinds of topics show up on the list of people's workshops, and we know what happens with workshops. Do you know what happens with Workshop you go through a lot of difficulty to get the juice and the donuts. You just spend a lot of time preparing you bringing your experts and 14 people show up. 8 people show up three people show up and people Val never again. I'll never do another Workshop. It just took too much time and trouble. We know that workshops. Don't bring in the numbers of people that we hope will help families understand what we expect or what families need to know at each grade level. Associated with each type of involvement is a challenge. I'm going to mention them as we go along the challenge associated with type 1 how to help families understand home conditions for learning at every grade level is not to stop doing workshops. But it is to find clever. Modern ways to help the families who do not come to the workshops to get the information that you want. Some schools are starting some clever technologically important ways of helping those who cannot come on the day that you schedule a workshop to get the information that they want. For example. Family school video schools will video tape the workshop then setting it in the media center with a screen families can watch the workshop anytime they are available. Or they tape record the workshop and learn the tape and a recorder to people who would like to hear the workshop anytime. They would like or they summarize the workshop in the language of the family. So that all families can get a quick clear clearly worded summary of the important things that came out of the workshop. This might be done in a newsletter or a flyer or a special kind of Communication mechanism there were ways to help people who cannot come to a meeting at a school get that information without creating the kinds of guilt. They come from all of our attention to meetings at schools. The one thing that we are focused on often when people say I would have good parent involvement at this school if I could only get more people to come. Has got to disappear. In our surveys of parents, we ask them. These are Statewide Urban rural suburban parents in Maryland and inner-city parents in Baltimore. We ask them. When can you come to the school for Meetings & Conferences? Workshops, they said 28% in the morning. 25 or 6% in the afternoon and the rest of the evening now if you schedule a workshop at Wednesday 1 because that's when your expert can come. You start with a base of who can come then and then heading who's got Dental meetings who's got Dental appointments who has to take their kids somewhere else who has to be home for some other reason you end up with 13 people and it isn't because the rest don't care or don't want to know what is happening at that Workshop. So the challenge with type 1 activities is if you think it's important enough for people to know then we have to find ways. You need to your school. Every school will try some different ways. We have to find ways to get the information out in words and languages that people can understand. The second type of of involvement is the analog to the basic obligations of families and it is the basic obligations of schools. And that means Communications from the school to the home. There isn't a school represented in this room. That doesn't send home a mosasaur notices or that doesn't send home report cards or that doesn't send home information about trips and plays and things or that doesn't hold some conferences with parents. When we survey teachers over 90% close to 97% said they have conferences with parents when we surveyed parents 34% said they never had a conference with a teacher and which one was right the 90% plus of the teachers or the 34% of parents who said they didn't meet the teachers and of course, they're both right teachers have a conference now and then with someone for whatever reason called by whomever parents sometimes do not get that one face-to-face meeting that someone mentioned this morning as so important is face-to-face interaction that can set up the whole rest of the school year. We not only have to find better ways to schedule conferences and reach the parents who don't come easily, but we have to improve the content of those conference. I taught for six years before I went back to school. Mostly 6th grade my early adolescent kind of theme running through my life. And I know those conferences that we had with families and their 10 minutes 15 minutes schedule long and you're hoping that nothing terrible happens during that time so that you can move on to the next one without losing your cool and you're trying to get through the test scores and the information you want to give parents in a hurry hoping they won't have time for too many questions. That's not the content. We want in the one face-to-face meeting that most schools have with families. We want the content of those conferences to reflect. How are we Partners? How will we be partners this year you and I with your child. And if we can change the content of those conferences, then we will have met a challenge in the type to activity another challenge and type-2 is mentioned this morning as one of the very good example of how to fix a real serious problem. And that is think it was the teacher Center who talked about what they do in that middle school for an interim report know lots of schools give interim reports about report card right between report card. And usually they say your child is in danger of failing. On this interim report, and that supposed to mean your child is in danger. So 4 weeks later if you get the report card, and your child has failed, no one is surprised. Don't call me. We told you and it happened. But the teacher this morning said they do it a little differently and this is a very important strategy they say your child is in danger of failing and this is how we are going to work together to make sure that that doesn't happen that's the application of partnership to the challenge of a type 2 communication activity The same with memos and notices at home, if you have parents who don't read English who don't read English well and you sent home a note in English and a note in educational. Jargon. You have told the children of those families. Your families are worth talking to and your families are not your family's we can't talk to very well. So it's their problem. We have to fix the communication problems in all of our schools to reach the parents. We are not reaching right now. We have to first figure out who are we reaching? Who are you and who are you not reaching? Do you know who you are not reaching and if so, how will you go about it over the next three years of reaching them? That's the kind of of tasks that this three-year plan sets up. The third type of involvement is volunteers at the school building. There isn't a school in this room. It doesn't have one or two. Usually one who comes every day. We would know what to do if they all showed up. But we do know that there's a challenge associated with volunteers that we are not meeting first. There are parents out there who would volunteer if they were recruited not The Clique of 10 or 12 who typically are your volunteers. So we have to reach out to the parents who do not know that it really are welcome to help the school. The second is once we recruit them we have to train them we have to help them be helpful and productive to the teachers in the school who could use volunteers. Some schools are setting up parent rooms a room designated for parents to help the school and to help each other. This is very successful when as a very important point was made by Someone this morning the superintendent this morning who said they hired a part-time parent school coordinator Master teacher who has credibility with their colleagues to help everyone in that school, or is it the district but I hope in the school deal with this topic of family and School connections to fill that Gap left by the lack of this in pre-service training. This master teacher role. I've been arguing for many years is the critical role that we need right now in many schools or shared among schools. I visited some middle schools in Seattle not long ago and they had as a result of a foundation brand hired one full-time person into middle schools who was the family school coordinating person to work especially with kids at risk and their family. So those who failed to courses the first report card. Don't fail two courses II and so And so forth they had a parent room in each of these middle schools and Middle School parents do want information. These people were so invaluable that when the grant ran out the superintendent actually found money. The word is fired a couple of Administrators to hire and keep these full-time people in these two schools that action like the one you heard this morning represents a reflection sitting back and saying what is important and what is needed And people will say when I talk about this master teacher, but that means we may have to fire someone well, maybe or maybe reassigned someone I can get in big trouble with guidance counselors and assistant superintendents and assistant principals by suggesting that these people might do that job. But somehow we have to find a way to do what your superintendent reflected they have already done here because this person if you talk to her or him or people who share the job will tell you how critical it is to help other teachers understand what we are talking about today. That's the place where X plus no money equals Excellence even parent involvement activities done. Well will cost something and they might cost the expense of a full-time or halftime or shared person. So that Volunteers in a parent room or volunteers at a school will be coordinated by someone. I will actually be helpful to teachers which is the goal and challenge of type 3 Type 4 is what are research mainly was about and that was learning activities at home. Of all the types of involvement. These are not ordered by importance type 1 or type 5 is no more important than type 2 or type for this is types and not levels but of all the types. The one type that most parents say that they need most help with and the type of schools are weakest in in general in that they haven't started it at all. And many place is Type 4 how to help your child at home. How what you help at home helps a child do better in school. How can I know how to help a first grader a third grader a 5th grader? Not so much help meaning I will do the work for them or and definitely not I will be the teacher for them. The teacher is always a teacher. But how will I know how and what to say about math in grade 3 or math and grade 7 that will help my child keep on a math track math mindset longer stay with math or science longer or talked about mass at home so that I say these subject stay on the agenda at home. We do somewhat of a pretty good job with this in kindergarten grade, 1 parents talk with their kids about reading 90% of the teachers and grade 1 say they try to help parents know how to help in reading sometime during the school year and that graph looks like this way 103 grade 5 Middle grades are off the chart. When we have parents, do you know how to help your child over the years the picture is exactly the same. Can you help your child in math and reading grade 1 grade 3 grade 5 Middle grades off the chart as teachers stop involving and informing families about what their children are learning in school family say they do not know how to talk to their children about school. They begin to lose touch with their school and they begin to lose touch with their children and we know what happens when that happens. At the middle level parent involvement really disastrously drops. It really drops after grade 2. We know that these children who are our future dropouts. They won't all be fixed by parent involvement, but they will be supported and many more will stay in school. If all across the grades families knew how to keep school on the agenda at home math is interesting and important science is interesting and important isn't that interesting what you are learning in school the tips process that we may have a chance to talk about this afternoon is a homework help model that we worked out with teachers to see if we couldn't find a way that teachers could incorporate easily into their homework process a way of keeping parents informed and involved with math and science activities with it. Those were two subjects that were really not part of teachers Comfort Inn asking for involvement or parents Comfort Inn asking for involvement. Whether you use tips or not. Everyone in this room could do the following tomorrow is part of your 3-year plan and it wouldn't cost anything. Here's a here's a freebie that everyone could do tomorrow no cost. This is the sentence every teacher at every grade level in every subject. could if they wanted to or if they were made to food if they wanted to design one homework assignment a month or more that required children to talk. To someone at home about something interesting that they are learning in that subject. Everyone could if they wanted to design these kinds of homework assignments. If they just make one little change, here's the challenge for Type 4. Homework is to help kids improve their Independent Learning skills, and it is to be done at times alone at your desk at a quiet place in the evening or in the afternoon in a time. That is set aside for homework. Some homework is to do independently, but some homework can be designed to be interactive on purpose. Some homework requires kids to talk about what they are learning to get reactions to interview people to ask for an editing kind of job to ask for reaction. Whether it's an English or social studies or science or math, whether it's with tips or some other process some of our homework in every grade could be to get kids to talk to them to someone at home about something interesting so that what is the reaction at home G. That's interesting. I didn't know about that. This can be chemistry and grade 11. It can be US history in grade 7. It can be any subject any grade level and it can happen tomorrow regardless of what else we do to build a comprehensive program V type of involvement. Is governance in decision-making and you heard an eloquent parent who talked about being part of the decision-making team in Head Start and you heard your your principal this morning discuss how parents are included in the school site decision-making activities know that's the buzzword for the 90s School site decision-making School site management all of the participatory activity that brings School community and family into some role in decisions of school and involves the ptas and the Committees. Chapter one committees that's texlax facts, whatever you call them here committees and groups of Leaders The Challenge with this type is a couple of things first. This is not simple having a School site management team with a couple of people on it who represent a large population of parents is not an easy thing to put in place so that all members of the school site team respect each other's ideas share and get the information out to those. They represent has a very tricky process. The second is that if you have multiple communities in your school and you have representatives from just one as the people are who are always on these committees. If you have a in California, there was a Hispanic School mainly 70% Hispanic 30% Anglo but every member of the PTA Council all people on the important committees people who were representing the school were Anglo. And the people said as you heard this morning all the others, they don't care. They can't come they won't do it. They don't want to be they won't can't don't. And a new principal came into that school. It said this is not acceptable. So he found whether they do or rooms or couldn't or will and after 3 years, it wasn't representative but 50% and 50% were on members of these committees and all of a sudden people who couldn't and wouldn't could and did. And that's what we have to think of in the schools in which you work. If you have an Indian Community in an Asian community and angle of community and other community and a poor community and a rich Community or a black community to my community who are your representatives and how do we build the voices that will be part of our type 5 activities? That's the challenge these five types represent a comprehensive program in your school. Is there any school represented here who isn't doing something in one of those types anyone hero is doing nothing. Is there any school here that is doing all five types in all grade levels with all teachers reaching all families. That's our challenge the challenges that over the next three years. Each of you will be closer to more families helping the school's help more youngsters, and I hope that you will accept that challenge so that things really happen. Thank you.