Cobb County Schools Enact Parental Engagement Policy (Morgan: credit, private schools)

[hautemomma]

Not sure where I stand on this.

Cobb County schools to implement parental involvement policies | News | mdjonline.com

After months of board member David Morgan pushing for increased parental involvement, the Cobb Board of Education has unanimously passed parental engagement policy changes.

Morgan said parents not attending an event or meeting is “no longer acceptable.”

[rcsteiner]

Interesting. Providing incentives for parents to attend school-related meetings and activities. I know some parents are single parents who work, so finding time can be a challenge. And this makes it sound like each school can set up their own criteria?

[demonta4]

If this prevents students from participating in school events just due to their parents, then this is a major fail. Imagine a poor students with a good GPA but their parent's work all the time and have little time to visit a school, so they help their child from home.

[cqholt]

This idea is a double edged sword.

[whodean]

Good start, there is no greater indicator of student success than parental involvement.

[hautemomma]

Originally Posted by whodean

Good start, there is no greater indicator of student success than parental involvement.

But the quality and content of parental involvement matter more. Serving snacks during Teacher Appreciation Week has nothing to do with students' academic performance or social matriculation.

[whodean]

The schools can't mandate how intelligent a parent is, they can only influence their presence

[Big L]

Originally Posted by hautemomma

But the quality and content of parental involvement matter more. Serving snacks during Teacher Appreciation Week has nothing to do with students' academic performance or social matriculation.

Exactly! I am all for parental involvement, but quality should be measured over quantity. If a parent is attending parent/teacher conferences, helping with homework at home, and maintaining contact with their child's teacher, then they shouldn't have to break their neck to get to the school for "credits".

[CCATL]

Originally Posted by whodean

Good start, there is no greater indicator of student success than parental involvement.

Well, there are actually much better indicators of student success, especially if you define student success as achievement, defined by test scores. SES being one of the best indicators. But I digress....

This is just bad. Yes, parental involvement is a great thing. And I really wish we could say to every parent, you need to be involved in your child's education, and come to school events, and parent-teacher conferences, and workshops, etc. But we just can't - it's impossible. And penalizing students for their parents actions just puts a student further behind at no fault of their own. You're basically telling a kid - your single mother works the wrong hours, and therefore, you will not be able to enjoy this field trip with your classmates. Or, your father can't afford a car, but it takes a 2 hours to take the Cobb County bus to the school, so he won't make it - now you're in trouble. It's stupid - it is penalizing 1) the wrong person, 2) something that might even be beyond the parents control.

Policies like this are written from a middle class or higher perspective, where people generally have either more normal work hours or more flexibility in their schedules. Are there parents out there who can attend and don't? Yes, obviously. But many times, there are reasons people aren't attending things, and it is so that they can make money to feed their kids, or couldn't hire a babysitter, or any other number of reasons. These kinds of policies are mostly found in private schools (i.e.: wealthy people paying for their kid not to get a public education), and there is good reason for that. These are the people with flexibility. Public schools should not be punishing students for their parents actions - rather, they should be helping students get an education that helps them to succeed in life, regardless of their family SES (although we all know this isn't how it actually happens).

[whodean]

Did you read the description of the policy?. It will not "penalize the child".