Cobb County Schools Enact Parental Engagement Policy

[BR Valentine]

Originally Posted by wasel

Well, David Morgan was given an education award by the NAACP and he also taught in the Head Start program for low income kids, so presumably he understands the struggles of low income working families.

Also, the revised policy gives individual schools the flexibility to design their own program to fit the demographics of their own community. The kids aren't penalized. Someone said graduation tickets are taken away that that's no true. Everyone gets graduation tickets but extra ones can be awarded as part of the credits.

I think it's a good idea.

It's an idiotic policy that isn't going to improve parent engagement or educational outcomes. His first pass at this was to implement the policy as it is typically implemented at no-excuses charter schools. That's where this idea came from and why the policy initially contained sanctions against students.

The current version has no teeth to it and is unlikely to do anything to increase parental engagement among the parents you want more engaged. At the same time it's going to irritate many middle income parents who make up the majority of district parents. When I read about this my first thought was that I'm glad I don't live in Cobb and have to put up with this nonsense. Lastly, schools are already under an extreme burden of reporting requirements. The last thing they need is another pointless data set to maintain.

[wasel]

Originally Posted by hautemomma

I think this "policy" will backfire, and I say this as a parent who is involved in my kids' education / school probably a bit more than average, though I'm not the caliber that's volunteering in the classrooms every week, organizing events and buying extras all the time. My peer parents, within my community, are not feeling this policy, even though they are involved with their kids' education and aware of the goings-on within their schools. Many of our conversations have revolved around implementation, monitoring and enforcement, and how this is unfair to households where parents don't have flexibility in time or extra funds in dollars to spend on school incidentals. This doesn't even just have to relate to lower-income households either. We're thinking of single parents, households with other challenges (sick relatives), etc.

What is the specific level of commitment being required of parent? I wasn't aware that this had been decided yet.

The last I heard any parent conferences with the school could be done after hours online.

[hautemomma]

Originally Posted by wasel

What is the specific level of commitment being required of parent? I wasn't aware that this had been decided yet.

The last I heard any parent conferences with the school could be done after hours online.

Each school will determine its own policy. I think all of the public Cobb schools will have to create their policies by the beginning of the 2016/17 academic year. At that time, the parents, I assume, will be informed of those standards at their respective schools.

I think the motivation, in part, for the outcry in my neck of the woods is that our schools already tacitly demand quite a bit - extras in the form of shared supplies for students and teachers, snacks for special events, donation for teacher/staff gifts, volunteer hours for tutoring students, running book fairs, chaperoning field trips, planning / running events - and this is all in addition to the usual business of the PTA. Moreover, this doesn't help when you have kids in elementary and middle school coming home with a new project (that clearly required parental help) every few weeks or 2+ hours of homework on multiple nights of the week.

It is an unsaid truism that the parents who can give the most do reap unspoken benefits, like selecting their "choice" teachers, routing their kids into preferred programs and more. It can all get very political.

I have never had the choice of attending a parent conference online or via phone. That's why Cobb shuts the school down for a week of half-days every fall for parent-teacher conferences (which is ridiculous).