A. Title – Improving Parental
Involvement of Hispanic Parents at an Economically Disadvantaged
Middle School
B. Needs Assessment – The need for
improvement was determined by the prior school years lack of parental
involvement. The parents were minimally involved in academic
activities. This was seen by the lack of an active Parent Teacher
Organization and lack of parent response to numerous surveys. This
impact was also seen in low student test scores and high student
discipline problems.
C. Objectives and Vision of the Action
Research – Middle School will provide monthly parent meetings in
Spanish with a focus on parent recommended agendas to increase
attendance at parent meetings. The campus will also provide
call-outs in Spanish. Increased attendance will be seen through
observation and students whose parents attend will be monitored for
improved academic performance and decreased discipline problems.
D. Review of Literature and Action
Research Strategy – For the implementation of the action research
project myself and my site-supervisor were involved as well as a
committee of administrators, teachers and parents. We reviewed
parent response to surveys and exit tickets, considered the time of
year and what was relevant at the time, and how we would present
information (one meeting with translation or two meetings – one
with translation and one without). We decided based on the
literature review and the conditions of our current campus to
present it in two meetings – one provided in English with Spanish
translation and one only in English.
Literature considered -
Epstein,
J. L., Coates, L., Salinas, K. C., Sanders, M. G., & Simon, B. S.
(1997). Epstein's six types of involvement. In School,
family, and community partnerships: Your handbook for action.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Pena,
D. (2000). Parent involvement: Influencing factors and implications.
The Journal of Educational Research, 94(1), 42.
Sanders,
M., & Lewis, K. (2005). Building bridges toward excellence:
Community involvement in high schools. The
High School Journal,
88(3), 1-10.
Sanders,
M. G. (2001). Schools, families, and communities partnering for
middle level students' success. NASSP
Bulletin, 85(627),
53-61.
Rutherford,
B., & Billig, S. H. (1995). Eight lessons of parent, family, and
community involvement in the middle grades. Phi Delta Kappan,
77(1), 64-66, 68.
Comuntzis-Page,
G. (1996). Critical issue: Creating the school climate and
structures to support parent and family involvement. Appalachia
Educational Laboratory/North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.
Washington, DC: Learning Points Associates. Retrieved January 22,
2009, from
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issue/envrnmnt/famncomm/pa300.htm.
E.
Articulate the vision - I articulated the vision of the project
through e-mail and in person. I provided the initial data collected
to help others understand the reason through a oral with powerpoint
presentation.
F.
Managing the Organization – After the initial meeting of the
parental involvement committee we determined there was a need for a
checklist of responsibilities. We held bi-weekly meetings to discuss
the meeting agenda and assign duties. The assistant principal
typically took on the duty of communicating the meeting to the
public, I took on the duty of coordinating the set-up of the building
and securing the translator, other members took on various duties. If
we needed a pamphlet to be made a member would take on that duty. If
we needed people outside of the campus to come and present the AP
would secure those members. During one meeting we had several
presenters working from the same presentation so we utilized google
presentation to collaborate and create the presentation to be used at
the meeting. I would keep notes of the items discussed at the
bi-weekly meetings.
G.
Manage Operations – We communicated in-person, through e-mail,
through online surveys (google forms), and online collaborative
software (google docs). We utilized the needs assessment and data to
make decisions on how to present our meetings in a way that meet our
school communities needs. It was fairly easy to build consensus and
communicate with such a small group because we were all able to share
our ideas and come to a conclusion on what we would do for the
upcoming meeting. Typically I would share the parent responses from
the last meeting and myself and the AP would've discussed prior our
ideas for the next meeting. At the whole group meeting I would
present the responses and discuss the current idea then in an open
style forum the rest of the members would share their ideas on how to
improve the meeting, what would need to be omitted for time purposes
and who would be best to present the topic. Minor
disagreements were able to be resolved through compromise.
H.
Respond to Community Interest and Needs – Our entire focus was on
the community. In our data analysis we found that it was necessary to
provide meetings in Spanish. We made this a priority for every
meeting. As we gained feedback from parents on the timing of the
meeting we took that into consideration when scheduling future
meetings. We also made it a priority to hear what parents wanted from
the meetings. We took this responses into consideration when creating
agendas for future meetings.
