I’ve written a lot about Elisa Gonzalez, our school’s extraordinary parent coordinator. Her work is invaluable to our school’s overall success. As part of New York City Chancellor Carmen Fariña’s often-stated goal to increase parent engagement there, a New York City parent coordinator has some suggestions for her: As part of her pledge to boost […]
Parent coordinators in New York City schools have had a tough time — they’ve been pressured by bosses to manipulate elections, threatened with mass lay-offs, and many other indignities (you can read my previous posts about their challenges here). Note to New Mayor: Show Some Love to Parent Coordinators in the Schools is a post […]
Schools in Madison, Wisconsin, are increasing their number of parent coordinators (they call them liaisons). New York City looks like they might be going in the opposite direction. Who do you think is moving in the right direction?
The New York City public schools have obviously had a lot of problems related to parent involvement, but I suspect that eliminating 1,600 parent coordinators at local schools may not be the best way to solve them. That’s mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner’s proposal, though it looks like the coordinators are fighting back. I’m not sure […]
In March, I wrote about the controversy in New York when Mayor Bloomberg’s staff pushed 400 school parent coordinators to get parents to sign a petition demanding the end to teacher seniority rules. Today, The New York Times reports that the School Board’s Special Investigator found the effort “was partisan, inappropriate and a violation of […]
A Day in the Life of a Parent Coordinator is a nice, short audio slideshow from the National Education Association. Take two minutes of your time to check it out…
City OKs Layoffs Of High School Parent Coordinators is the title of a New York City online video and article that appeared today. Here’s how it begins: Testifying before the City Council Monday, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said he will allow school principals to lay off parent coordinators and abolish the position as a way […]
Virginia school district parents practice calm communication on culture war issues is from NPR. Not all social media use is bad, but it often gives us the "empty calories of social interaction," instead of the healthy ingredients we need. @NPRCoryTurner @cohennichttps://t.co/AaHfvWV9Z5 — MindShift (@MindShiftKQED) March 25, 2023 How can we help young children learning to […]
Schools’ bilingual facilitators have busy days with growing Hispanic population is the headline of a fairly lengthy article in the Annapolis, Maryland newspaper about the local school district hiring Bilingual Facilitators (which I think most districts would call “parent coordinators”). It’s worth a read….
Chalkbeat shares highlights from a letter New York City Chancellor Carmen Fariña recently sent to principals. It runs thirteen pages, but this particular excerpt caught my idea. It seems like an interesting idea: At M.S. 319 Maria Teresa in Manhattan, Principal Ysidro Abreu and his parent coordinator host a monthly “Parent Learning Walk.” They start […]
New York City schools have a recent history of not being very effective around parent engagement, but it appears that new Chancellor Carmen Fariña might be beginning to change that…. Here are two recent articles from Chalkbeat describing her plans: Fariña’s parent engagement strategy starts with index cards Parent coordinators look for specifics, and reassurance, […]
Check out my Ed Week column, Community Schools ‘Transform the Lives of Children & Families’ I’ve published many posts on Community Schools, which are schools that make a point of working with the local community and resources and facilities. I’m a big supporter of them. However, as I’ve written in some of my posts, I […]
The San Francisco Chronicle recently published an article about a series of “PTA School Smarts Parent Academies” that are being held at a local school and others around the state. The President of the California PTA also has written a column about this effort. I’m sure it’s a good experience for the parents involved, but […]
I’ve posted a lot about good parent engagement/involvement ideas, but sometimes you can learn just as much from looking at bad examples. You can see lots of good ideas at all my parent engagement-related “The Best” lists here. Here are my choices for The Worst Parent Engagement Ideas: Putting Parents in Charge is a condescending […]
Two months after completely bungling elections for Parent Councils (and that election was a “do-over” because they had completely bungled it the first time), they have announced spending $2 million dollars for a survey to parents. I have voiced my concerns about the use of surveys in previous posts. I am amazed, though, the the […]
School’s a Community Effort in Indiana District is another excellent article by Mary Ann Zehr at Education Week. I’ve written a number of posts about these kind of community schools — ones that connect many community services with students and their families. I’m concerned, though, about many of them relating to parents as clients instead […]
CNN produced this video story on “Parent University” in Philadelphia. It seems like an okay program, but it could be so much more. Elisa Gonzalez, the Parent Coordinator at our school, has, I think, developed a national model of what a “Parent University” can really become — by first asking parents what they want to […]
Earlier this month, I wrote about how Newark Continues To Show The World How NOT To Do Parent Involvement/Engagement. It now looks like the school district in my native town, New York City, is giving Newark a run for its money. The New York Times reports this about the Office of Family Engagement: In January, […]