Creating a connection between Parent involvement and student achievement

Involving parents and community members is a huge part of the work that we do at Majestic Elementary. As a diverse community with a high rate of generational poverty, we work hard to help our students and their families understand the powerful impact that education can have on their lives. For the past four years, I have hired a Family Learning Coordinator and a Homeless Liaison who look after the basic needs of our families to make sure that students have clothes, food, and heat and electricity that they need in order to come to school truly ready to learn.

In our Family Center, we offer classes for parents each day so that they can learn English, computer skills, parenting skills, etc. In addition, we have challenged these parents to volunteer in their child’s class, and to join the PTA. With a student population that is 67% Hispanic, we are proud to have our first Hispanic PTA Board member to give a voice to her community. We have found that when parents attend these classes regularly, their example has a positive impact on their own children and we see great academic gains.

In addition, we have implemented Academic Parent Teacher Teams in place of traditional parent teacher conferences. Each teacher conducts three 75 minute meetings throughout the year to teach parents how to read and understand the data that shows how their students are performing on foundational skills. From there, teachers demonstrate activities that parents can do at home with their children to strengthen these specific skills. The data is reviewed at the next meeting so that parents can see the impact that they have on their child’s learning.

Empowering and inspiring parents to take a more active role in their children’s education has been amazing.