Draft Action Research Project Progress Report

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.