WOW! What great discussions about working with diverse students and how your own schools match up to what you read about. Thanks for your thoughtfulness in the midst of the craziness of the walkout. You all are awesome in supporting your students by advocating for education for all Oklahoma children. I am proud to say that you all are my education colleagues. I am sorry that OEA feels the need to end the advocacy, and have read that some districts are sending delegations of teachers to the Capitol to continue. I think you all sent an important message to lawmakers, although I'm not so sure they interpreted that message very well. I've seen Facebook posts with parent groups taking over the fight, so I hope the pressure at the Capitol continues. As a citizen of Oklahoma, a taxpayer, and a fellow educator, thanks for your advocacy and for what you do each day to support the future through a quality education for all children.
This week you will be reading about working with different stakeholders within and outside of the school. These stakeholders include parents, principals, community members and volunteers, outside institutions, and paraprofessionals. What does your school do to communicate and collaborate with parents? Some of the other stakeholders? What do you hope to learn this week?
For this week, everyone should read B&D 6 which is about the role of the principal as a literacy leader. As you read, think about your own situation? How does your principal fit in with the characteristics of an instructional leader? How could you, as a reading specialist, support him/her?
The other three chapters (B&D 16, B 10, WSQ 16) focus on both parent involvement, but also the involvement of the other stakeholders I mentioned above. If you are a group of three, each of you read one of the chapters and then share and make connections across the chapters. If you are a group of 4, two of you read B10 and the other two each read one of the other chapters. Then make connections across the chapters. Please make sure to discuss/compare the following terms in your blog discussions: differentiated parenting, parental appropriateness, funds of knowledge, parental role construction, parental self-efficacy, distributed leadership, parental involvement, outreach, external agencies. The reflection questions 1-3 at the end of WSQ 16 and at the end of B10 would make good questions to discuss as you share what your chapter says.
I'm looking forward to reading your revised PD plans, and will work to have them to you early in the week with feedback and points earned. I'm keeping up on the rubric and will plan to send it completed to you with your grant proposal.
Have a good week!
These stakeholders include parents, principals, community members and volunteers, outside institutions, and paraprofessionals. What does your school do to communicate and collaborate with parents? Some of the other stakeholders? What do you hope to learn this week?
ReplyDeleteAt our school all of the teachers use the Remind app to stay in contact with parents. It is a simple way for parents' to contact us as needed and for us to send out class-wide announcements, notes, undated, and pictures and well as individual messages. In addition, the students have take home folders for physical notes and the school secretary sends out information by emails. Our district also does automated calls for information as well.
We hold two parent teacher conferences a year, and also host a Family Math and Literacy Night. Our Family Math and Literacy Night is our biggest attempt each year to collaborate with parents. Each grade level develops math and literacy activities that can be easily taken or created a home. The parents and students come and participate in the activities and play the games with their students so they can learn how to do them at home. The parents get to take a lot of the activities home as well as the materials to create other activities to help their students in both reading and math. We encourage our parents to come up to the school at any time to volunteer to help in the classrooms and invite them to join us for field trips and other special events.
As far as other stakeholders go, this is something I hope to learn more about. We do have community members come in and do presentations, such as dentists, police officers, and firefighters but I feel that reaching out to other community stakeholders to collaborate in an area we could work on.
Our school strives to maintain a steady flow of communication with all our stakeholders including parents, principals, community members, volunteers, and paraprofessionals. One way in which we accomplish this, particularly for parents, is by utilizing email, newsletters, and apps like remind101 and Class DOJO. Computer based programs are particularly advantageous. They create ease in messaging class behavior, posting class and school events, reminding students and parents about upcoming or past assignments, etc. Our teachers each maintain a page in the school website, and many have created links to get to their classroom blogs. There sure does not seem to be any end to the various ways teachers work to keep their parents in the know. Additionally, our school has a Facebook page where community members are free to go in order to update on future programs, special dinners, as well as sports and academic meets and fundraisers.
ReplyDeleteThis week I hope to learn more about how to get the community even more involved within the school. I can't help but to connect some of my thoughts about the importance of this involvement to the happenings over the teacher walk out. Now, maybe more than ever, I would like to have some ideas on how to communicate the effectiveness of community involvement in our school. We really do rely so much on outsider's support. How can we better reach those who are within our district, but do not have a hands-on approach to the school community?
These stakeholders include parents, principals, community members and volunteers, outside institutions, and paraprofessionals. What does your school do to communicate and collaborate with parents? Some of the other stakeholders? What do you hope to learn this week?
ReplyDeleteOur school works to maintain communication with parents through weekly newsletters in both English and Spanish. We are also a neighborhood school with most of our students parents picking them up, this is a very beneficial time for parents and teachers to communicate. Many of our teachers in our building also rely on Class Dojo to keep parents updated on behaviors and the messaging aspect allows teachers to communicate other important information.
With the majority of our students and their families speaking Spanish, we do have difficulty overcoming the language and cultural differences. I hope this week to learn other effective ways to communicate with the community and even encourage more involvement. We have many parents that are vested in our school but are very hands off when it comes to getting involved beyond their own child.
These stakeholders include parents, principals, community members and volunteers, outside institutions, and paraprofessionals. What does your school do to communicate and collaborate with parents? Some of the other stakeholders? What do you hope to learn this week?
ReplyDeleteWe communicate with our families using weekly newsletters, emails, and phone calls. Our PTA is very involved with school activities and events, as well as informing our families on current events within the school. Google docs, sheets, forms, etc. are often used when collaborating with scheduling and planning events. Some teachers also create personal websites to help inform families regarding classroom news and events. This year, the kindergarten team has been using an app called Seesaw to communicate with families. This is an online student portfolio that is interactive and integrates parent involvement. Parents can view and comment on student work. They can also receive messages and updates from the teacher. It's been a great addition to classroom instruction and family communication.
The most common form of communication used for stakeholders that I am aware of is email. This seems to be the most efficient approach to communication. It is also documentable, so following up on previous discussions or events are possible.
This week, I hope to learn about other forms of effective communication between all stakeholders. I would also like to learn about how we can integrate other stakeholders into the curriculum, while promoting and improving literacy achievement.
These stakeholders include parents, principals, community members and volunteers, outside institutions, and paraprofessionals. What does your school do to communicate and collaborate with parents? Some of the other stakeholders? What do you hope to learn this week?
ReplyDelete* To communicate with stakeholders my school utilizes a Dale Schools Facebook page. Weekly and sometimes daily, pictures and notes are posted about events, awards, school-community involvement, and our great kids. Comments are not posted on the page, but are delivered to the Administrators and they respond as needed. We also have a school webpage with similar information. The webpage also lists the school menu and sports event schedules. Each teacher also has a webpage. Most of us use it regularly, but some teachers do not use it all. :(
My school also sends home a weekly newsletter. It contains the same information found on the school website, but is a quick reference for parents to have the lunch menu and ball game schedules.
* I update my webpage regularly, but also use Class DOJO to communicate with my parents. It is very similar to a private facebook, but I can communicate immediately with parents on student behaviors (good and bad).
* To communicate with teachers and assistants my Administrators use the Remind phone app. This works great!! (UNLESS a teacher accidentally deletes herself-I may be speaking from experience.)
* How we communicate with stakeholders outside of parents and community members is a bit unknown. Our local senator visits us each August and I know my Superintendent talks with him somewhat regularly. After the last two weeks I am quite disheartened into whether or not Senator Sharp actually listens to anything anyone tells him.
** I feel quite confident with how I communicate with my families, but in light of the last 2 weeks I wonder about outside of my classroom. I think as a school body we need to do a better job of communicating with BIG stakeholders at the state level.
* I hope to learn effective ways to share our school information. Is there something better than Facebook for the community to see? Is there something that we are missing or should be adding when we share information?
Our school does several things to communicate and collaborate with parents. Our main forms of communication with our parents are digital. Each week, every grade sends out a weekly note via our gradebook website, called Teacher Ease. We use TeacherEase communicate upcoming events, grades, and behavior. Our administration texts parents as needed for urgent or important news. Our school website was just redone and is much more user friendly for parents, students, and teachers. Very few paper notes are sent home these days, at least in middle school. In regards to collaboration, one major way our school and parents work together is through our PTC and school foundation. Our PTC organizes events like Chick-fil-a nights, pep rallies, PALS (parents who volunteer at school) teacher appreciation lunches, parenting speakers/events, and more. Our school foundation works to raise money for our school. Each year, teachers write grants to the foundation for technology, projects, supplies, field trips, or professional development training. Additionally, the younger grades uses parents as volunteers to work and read with small groups of students. Another way our school collaborates with parents is through having STEM speakers. At least once a year, parents come and address different grades and share how their job relates to science, technology, engineering, and math. We always have tons of parents who volunteer to chaperone on field trips, too!
ReplyDeleteOther stakeholders our school collaborates with are community members. We had a bond issue up for voting last week, so our school did a big push to inform other people in our community beyond just parents. Our school has student teachers and preservice teachers in our buildings frequently from UCO and Oklahoma Christian University. We have a few partnerships with external organizations, like Project Lead the Way and the Metropolitan Library System.
This week I hope to learn more about how to involve parents in face-to-face ways with middle school students. This is a challenge because middle school students don’t want their parents around EVER. I also hope to learn more about how to involve other community and educational institutions.
To communicate with parents, my school sends home a monthly newsletter. Every teacher, the PE and Music teacher, and the principal submit a one-page article that is combined into one newsletter. All of the articles contain information about what is happening in their classrooms and the principal gives information that pertains to the overall school and upcoming events. Another way that our school communicates with parents is through an automated call that the principal sends out every Sunday night, (a robo call). In this call, she gives parents information about the upcoming week. Our school is small and we are considered a neighborhood school. We do not have busses. Our students walk home, or are car or daycare riders. Therefore, majority of the communication that our teachers do with parents happens when school is let out for the day and teachers walk out to greet parents. Teachers also email, call, and text parents.
ReplyDeleteTo collaborate with parents, we invite parents to volunteer in the classrooms or in the cafeteria during breakfast or lunch and we ask them to volunteer for field trips and to be involved in the PTA.
Our principal has communicated with several neighborhood families who live around our school who help to watch out for students as they walk home. Our PE teacher was able to collaborate with PAL (Police Athletic League) in which off duty officers helped to facilitate our basketball and volleyball teams, and a karate class. We also have Prairie Dance theatre (a school dance program) that holds a once a week class for our 3rd - 6th graders.
We have two paraprofessionals in each of our Pre K classrooms who assist the Pre K teachers. We also have a computer assistant who is a paraprofessional. She oversees the computer lab and is available to help out as needed.
I hope to learn from this week’s readings, other ways of communication that our school can try with parents. I also hope to read about how to get more parents involved and what could be other avenues for community partnerships.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteMy principal sends out a weekly newsletter to parents in which she shares important school-wide information such as event dates/times, messages, concerns, reminders etc. All teachers at my school also send out weekly newsletters with important class information in regards to what the students are learning, important reminders and even wish list items via an app called, Bloomz. This app allows me to send texts to all parents and shows me who has read the texts. Parents can also communicate with each other. The app also allows me to send documents or pictures and create sign ups. The parents at our school are very willing to collaborate with teachers. Parents volunteer their time to help out in the classroom and/or even share activities or knowledge about their own cultures. Parents are also very good at my school about helping support teachers with whatever supplies they might need to create a better learning environment for their students. We do have other stakeholders in the community that volunteer to help in various ways at our school, except I’m not always sure who or how this is organized. I am excited to read more about how I can involve community stakeholders.
My school sends out a weekly email “newsletter” about the upcoming week which includes the character trait of the month, any special events or assemblies, reminders, etc. I believe each individual teacher sends out newsletters for their class as well. I personally use the Bloomz app to communicate with parents and I think the gen ed teachers typically use the “Remind” app to do the same with theirs. In addition to these forms of communication are “robo calls” made by either the building principals, superintendent, Director of Activities, etc whenever there is a school closure (ie the walk out), or any other significant announcement.
ReplyDeleteThis is my first year at this particular site but it appears to have very active parent engagement and support theoughout the whole year. There is no PTA but parents are there on a daily basis to volunteer, bring goodies or supplies needed, etc.
I hope to learn more about community stakeholders in general, besides just parents and students. I am eager to learn ways that I can help facilitate engagement with all of these stakeholders- whether as a reading specialist or speech therapist.
My school tries very many avenues to connect with parents! Of course we send out notes and have social media as a way but we also try to invite the parents up to our school as much as possible. The face to face connection is best in my opinion. A lot of our teachers also use ClassDojo or Remind 101 to connected with them as well. There isn't a PTA at my school anymore due to parental drama :) We connect with other stakeholders the same way. We send letters, keep them updated on social media, and also invite them into our schools.
ReplyDeleteI hope to learn more about making meaningful connections this week. To me it is important to get parents and other stakeholders involved in our schools. I believe it makes the students more successful! So I hope to learn more about that.
Our principal sends out a parent email each week outlining what is going on for each day. We also have a Facebook page that parents can be a part of that posts the parent email as well. Most teachers use Remind or Dojo to communicate with parents. This allows teachers and parents to communicate directly daily. Teachers also send out weekly newsletters to parents. This isn’t a requirement of our school, but is something most teachers do each week. We have a PTA that connects our school and the community around us.
ReplyDeleteThis week I hope to learn the role of the literacy leader in getting parents involved, as well as outside community members. Establishing the connections between parents and the school are important, and I want to learn about how to make those connections more meaningful.