Read the School Community Journal Online

ADI's School Community Journal includes research and field reports related to the school as a community of teachers, students, parents, and staff. Parent involvement, family-school relations, site-based management, sociology of education, systems theory, the classroom community, and other topics are covered.

Engaging Parents in Education: Lessons From Five Parental Information and Resource Centers

"This guide explains "how to" strategies that the Parent Information Resource Centers (PIRCs) use to improve or expand their parental involvement programs in public schools." (click here to go to this USDOE web page). You may also request a printed copy by calling PIRC at (800) 947-7005.

Conway Family Involvement Hits the Road

By Mandy McDonald, Family Support Liaison

Mandy McDonald and Karen Gerdts Family involvement at Conway Elementary School in Conway, NH, is getting better each year. We have had a Family Support Liaison in our building since 2000. We began a partnership with NH State PIRC, more specifically Karen Gerdts, since the spring of 2007. We will continue this fall to work on our targeted goals of communication, study skills, homework, and literacy.

This fall we will be incorporating some exciting new tasks: driving our new roving bookmobile to local communities to get books into the hands of our students and parents; doing home visits to every second grader and bringing them study boxes filled with school supplies; doing a workshop to incoming kindergarten parents titled “Kindergarten Readiness”; and hopefully doing an “Interactive Reading” workshop.

We will continue to do the work we started last year by re-offering parent courses Raising Good Kids and Studying at Home. We started a wonderful but simple two-way communication tool “The Cougar Gram” which we will continue to utilize. At our Open House we will roll out our newly revamped “Title I Compact” which we hope to make more visible in classrooms and homes, so it becomes a living, working document as opposed to a piece of paper that gets forgotten about. As you can see, we have a lot of work ahead of us….I can hardly wait to get started!

I recently attended the National PIRC conference in Baltimore. It was energizing, powerful, and absolutely amazing! I was honored not only to be a participant but also to be asked to be a presenter. Karen and I (see photo above) discussed the strength in our partnership. We began by explaining how each individual state PIRC should have an evidence-based program; NH State PIRC uses Solid Foundation. We then explained how PIRC needs to reach out to organizations with what they can offer them, but also PIRC should ask “What can we do for you?” as each school, PTA, child care center, etc. will have individual and unique needs. We went on to discuss variables and resources which are both integral in getting action plans written and accomplished.

Overall, I think our presentation was well received. We had a great deal of information packed into the session and we definitely added a little bit of fun and humor which made it our own!

Thanks to the National PIRC and the NH State PIRC — John Michael Dumais, Heather Thalheimer, and Karen Gerdts — for making the trip possible and for believing in me.