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To Pandamonium: "Parental involvement" means a number of things....lastly any sort of monetary definition. Parental involvment means reading to your children before bed time, monitoring their homework, assisting with it when necessary, going to kid's games and musicals whenever possible, asking about their days and what new things they are learning, asking about their friends, meeting their friends' parents, emailing teachers with concerns, actually knowing what your child is doing in school and who they are doing it with.....that is parental involvement. The old saying "you get out of it what you put into it" certainly applies in most cases.
To Pandamonium: "Parental involvement" means a number of things....lastly any sort of monetary definition. Parental involvment means reading to your children before bed time, monitoring their homework, assisting with it when necessary, going to kid's games and musicals whenever possible, asking about their days and what new things they are learning, asking about their friends, meeting their friends' parents, emailing teachers with concerns, actually knowing what your child is doing in school and who they are doing it with.....that is parental involvement. The old saying "you get out of it what you put into it" certainly applies in most cases.
While I agree with all of this on it's surface I do have some comments about the last parts. It seems that most school districts we've been in discourage parents stating concerns to teachers and administration and both of the above do their level best to NOT let you know what's going on in the school.
If you can even get the teachers email address's we've found it takes an act of congress to get them to reply and when you try to let them know about concerns they'll start thinking your a pain in the rear parent and will avoid you like the plague. Just try and ask why your poor child is failing or to let you know if there's missing assignments BEFORE your child gets the "f" so you can address the matter and get it fixed.
Just our experiences so far...
While I agree with all of this on it's surface I do have some comments about the last parts. It seems that most school districts we've been in discourage parents stating concerns to teachers and administration and both of the above do their level best to NOT let you know what's going on in the school.
If you can even get the teachers email address's we've found it takes an act of congress to get them to reply and when you try to let them know about concerns they'll start thinking your a pain in the rear parent and will avoid you like the plague. Just try and ask why your poor child is failing or to let you know if there's missing assignments BEFORE your child gets the "f" so you can address the matter and get it fixed.
Just our experiences so far...
That is really too bad that your district doesn't encourage more parent/teacher contacts. All of our teacher's email addresses are on the school website, we have online grade books to monitor grades, our parent/teacher conferences are VERY well attended, in the 80+ percent for the high school and 90+% for the elementary/middle school. Our middle school is VERY good about emailing parents about upcoming events, big projects, etc. It is VERY nice!
That is really too bad that your district doesn't encourage more parent/teacher contacts. All of our teacher's email addresses are on the school website, we have online grade books to monitor grades, our parent/teacher conferences are VERY well attended, in the 80+ percent for the high school and 90+% for the elementary/middle school. Our middle school is VERY good about emailing parents about upcoming events, big projects, etc. It is VERY nice!
The above would have been helpful when my kids were in middle school, but my daughter and I were just discussing this today. Their middle school assigned so many projects that required so much parental involvement, you began to wonder just whose work it was and who was getting the grade! The kids should be able to do the work with minimal assistance, e.g. taking the kid to Wal Mart to get the supplies, etc. It shouldn't require the whole family staying up till midnight after working on it for weeks, which was the case with the "National History Day" project my older daughter did.
Colorado has equalized school funding to attempt to eliminate rich and poor districts. It's a complicated law, and there still are some inequities, but it's not as bad as Pennsylvania.
I'd love to hear how you guys did that. Can you give a basic overview?
Ohio's educational funding, based on property taxes, was declared "unconstitutional" like a decade ago and still nothing has been done about it.
I'd love to hear how you guys did that. Can you give a basic overview?
Ohio's educational funding, based on property taxes, was declared "unconstitutional" like a decade ago and still nothing has been done about it.
Georgia has at least one county that does this, Fulton county is quite large and is comprised of some very wealthy areas and some very poor areas. What we were told by the school my son attended was they were not allowed to do anything that the schools in the poorer areas couldn't do. This pertained to lunch and activities. Pretty much anything that cost money had to be equal across the district.
That may be the case in Pennsylvania, where I'm guessing pennquaker is from. I am from there, too, but have lived in Colorado a long time. Colorado has equalized school funding to attempt to eliminate rich and poor districts. It's a complicated law, and there still are some inequities, but it's not as bad as Pennsylvania.
Does it work in the reverse too--our 'poorest' districts has the most funding-the Minneapolis and St. Paul schools. They have almost $1000/student more funding then most of the suburban schools. There is one suburban town here that his having some pretty serious financial troubles due to very rapid growth. They are raising their activity fees for everything, sports, music, theater, speech, etc. to $300/kid/actvivity. In St. Paul the kids pay $15/activity.
I would be curious to know what the per pupil funding in in your top schools vs your poor schools before the law and what it is now.
While I agree with all of this on it's surface I do have some comments about the last parts. It seems that most school districts we've been in discourage parents stating concerns to teachers and administration and both of the above do their level best to NOT let you know what's going on in the school.
If you can even get the teachers email address's we've found it takes an act of congress to get them to reply and when you try to let them know about concerns they'll start thinking your a pain in the rear parent and will avoid you like the plague. Just try and ask why your poor child is failing or to let you know if there's missing assignments BEFORE your child gets the "f" so you can address the matter and get it fixed.
Just our experiences so far...
I am sorry that your school is so bad with communication, but I can say that it is not the same everywhere. It is school policy where I teach (middle school) that, with expection for extenuating circumstances, that all messages from parents (email, voicemail, visits to the office) must be responded to within 24 hours.
I actually had a teacher complain to my daughter about me emailing regarding a missing paper. I was just trying to figure out exactly what it was since it was only listed by name on the school grade website. This same school sent out an email at the end of the year to all parents telling them to be patient because everyone was cranky at this time of the year. They also requested that parents not expect quick answers to emails. They seemed very angry and I had no idea why since I had not had any contact with this department at all. I guess I felt that if they were having some issues with certain parents that they should have just addressed it with them and not all the parents.
I have learned not to judge a school by state testing alone. The school we attend has high rankings, but some of issues that I have had are unbelievable.
Last edited by goldenmom; 06-09-2008 at 03:55 PM..
I actually had a teacher complain to my daughter about me emailing regarding a missing paper. I was just trying to figure out exactly what it was since it was only listed by name on the school grade website. This same school sent out an email at the end of the year to all parents telling them to be patient because everyone was cranky at this time of the year. They also requested that parents not expect quick answers to emails. They seemed very angry and I had no idea why since I had not had any contact with this department at all. I guess I felt that if they were having some issues with certain parents that they should have just addressed it with them and not all the parents.
I have learned not to judge a school by state testing alone. The school we attend has high rankings, but some of issues that I have had are unbelievable.
I'm sorry to see you're seeing some of what we've seen. As for state testing, I had a principal flat out tell me that they do nothing but teach to the state tests so they don't lose funding if grades are down. Now I'm no rocket scientist but even I've figured out that those tests don't teach everything these kids need to know or even the basics I was taught as a child.
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School districts
