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Where do you rate?
By Chris Mortensen, Principal
Greenville High School
I read an interesting article about Florida considering that schools
begin evaluating parents on their involvement with their
children. This was being proposed as a bill by Florida State
Representative Kelli Stargel. Testing results, Annual Yearly
Progress, discipline numbers, graduation rate, attendance rates,
transient nature of the student population and programs offered by the
school are analyzed consistently from year to year to determine
effectiveness of schools.
These factors have then been used to focus the process for improvement
for schools throughout the state. It has been a recent trend that
the community looks at schools through the lens of a microscope and
makes decisions to improve the schools based on this data.
Lawmakers have worked tirelessly trying to overhaul public school
systems to make administrators and their teachers accountable for
individual student achievement.
Don’t get me wrong, this is all important data to help guide
improvement efforts, but the other end of the stick is how each of
these factors are influenced by external factors that are out of the
control of administrators, teachers and the local school systems as a
whole.
Let’s take a brief look at some of these factors, as a for instance in
this picture. There are divorces. Our population of
economically disadvantaged families, special needs populations and just
overall availability of parents to participate in their son’s or
daughter’s education need to be taken in to consideration. Many
of these factors, schools can only have minimal impact upon by
providing for student needs during the few hours that they are in the
school, but the factors still remain for the student to have to deal
with on a daily basis. All of these influence a student’s ability
to learn in the school.
Students also face drug issues, abuse, and sexual assault just to
mention a few. This is possibly even within their own
homes. Now we have the fear of placing humiliation and stigmas on
these students if anyone should find out. They are coming to
school with little sleep, under nourished and in some cases emotionally
drained. Again, we attempt to assist in making these situations
better, as best we can.
All of these factors have an influence on a school’s ability to achieve
a good rating in terms of being successful, certainly impacting the
student’s ability to learn and perform appropriately. No worries
though, the mark to be successful is only 100%.
Now, back to the articles interest for me…If schools graded parents on
their involvement with their children I wonder what I would rate.
How would you rate? I believe the article discussed a rating of
needs improvement, unsatisfactory and satisfactory, as the choices that
schools would have in regards to rating parents.
Obviously, parental involvement is important for proper student
development socially, emotionally, as well as educationally. Some
parents do not even realize that they are not providing for these needs
and in some cases even support student improper behavior and lack of
educational performance.
What needs should be considered you ask? The basic needs that
would be included in an evaluation involve whether the student was at
school and on time, getting sufficient sleep in order to learn and
eating a healthy meal to start the day. Whether the parent
provided the student with structured time to prepare for quizzes and
tests and complete assignments for their classes, so they come prepared
each and every day. Finally, do the parents make regular contact
with the educational programs by attending parent-teacher conferences
and communicating issues of concern to the educational learning of
their son or daughter.
Ultimately, we all know that everyone wants the best for their
kids. Educational reform was necessary and still has many factors
to be considered in making students as successful as possible in
gaining the best education for their future. Standards based
education is a step in the right direction for making a base for common
learning for all students, as well as each school’s work on the Ohio
Improvement Process to maximize the unique areas of change needed in
each district and building.
These are all great steps toward improvement, but they mean little if
the parent is not involved with the school and with their son or
daughter. So maybe just taking some time to contemplate our
involvement with our kids in their education can foster a movement
toward educational improvement.
Take time to ask them what they are doing and how you could be
involved. This could be the greatest factor in their educational
success for the future. After all,
How would you rate? And…
Are you willing to make a difference in their lives?
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