Sarah Sparks at Education Week has published a very readable summary of new parent involvement research. Her post, Parents Need Differentiated School Engagement, Study Finds, explains that research has:
identified three main types of parents, each of which a school must address to have a successful family-involvement program:
• Help seekers: Roughly 19 percent of parents are most concerned with finding out their own children’s academic progress and learning how they can help their students improve.
• School helpers: This 27 percent of parents is the closest to the traditional picture of the “PTA mom and dad.”
• Potential transformers: Finally, 31 percent of parents said they were interested in and ready to be more involved in shaping how the schools operate.
It’s definitely worth reading her entire post.
I’m adding it to “The Best Research Available On Parent Engagement.”
The involvement of the parents in a childs education makes a world of difference. One problem in schools is that parents are not always informed with what is going on with their child. A mobile application was just released onto the Google Play Store on Android that will solve this problem. The application is way teachers can update grades and attendance. The teacher can also update a calendar with assignments, tests, reports, trips, etc. The parents can log into the app and see their childs grades, attendance, and they can view the calendar. The teacher can also send messages to individual students or parents or they can send a group message to the entire class. it is an app like no other on the market. It will increase communication and involvement. The app is called Teacher App by Academically Informed. You can visit their website http://www.academicallyinformed.com.