Perspective

Sue Swaim

Make the Home–School Connection

Welcome to February 2006! The recent holiday season has come and gone and New Year's resolutions have already been made and broken. Nevertheless, the beginning of a new year always gives us an opportunity to reflect on our accomplishments and make necessary adjustments to some of our practices.

As we move into the second half of our school year, we face both opportunities and challenges such as state-mandated tests, transition programs from elementary to middle school and middle school to high school, and general student and teacher "spring fever." This might be a good time, then, to review, refine, and recommit to implementing a successful and active home-school communication plan.

In 1996, former Secretary of Education Richard Riley said, "Thirty years of research shows that when family and community members are directly involved in education, children achieve better grades and higher test scores, have much higher reading comprehension, graduate at higher rates, are more likely to enroll in higher education, and are better behaved."

A decade has passed since Secretary Riley encouraged educators to refocus their efforts to engage parents in an educational partnership to support the academic and personal growth of their children, yet we're still figuring out how to do this effectively. Without a doubt, it takes on a new importance and urgency at the middle level because too many parents mistakenly become less involved in middle school, believing that their adolescents need less support. In reality, they need even more support during this unique time of change. As stated in NMSA's This We Believe: Successful Schools for Young Adolescents (2003) "Research studies clearly link the involvement of both family and other adults in the community with high levels of student achievement, improved student behavior, and greater overall support for schools" (p. 18).

While ongoing research continues to underscore the importance of building these relationships and implementing effective parent communication strategies, we find that many teachers and principals have not yet fully addressed this issue nor implemented consistent and effective parent communication plans.

It's all too easy to list the reasons for the lack of parent communication such as inadequate time, apathy, language barriers, confrontational attitudes, and meager budgets. But, research and practice tell us we must find ways to overcome these barriers so that communication on a regular, ongoing basis among teachers, students, their parents, and the school principal are a valued and expected part of our school practices.

In this day and age, our range of communication strategies has significantly increased. Direct telephone calls, notes home, and parent-student-teacher conferences remain as important avenues for a strong home-school connection. However, e-communication now extends the possibilities to include e-mail, e-newsletters, Web pages, and online grading and planning books.

Does your teaching team or all-school parent communication plan utilize most of these possibilities? Has the importance of ongoing parent communication been discussed at team meetings or faculty meetings this year?

Are faculty professional learning experiences or other resources available to support the successful implementation of ongoing parent communication even when those conversations are challenging ones?

These are a few questions worth considering during your new year's professional reflection time because the benefits of getting middle level parents and caregivers involved in the education and well-being of their children is more than worth the effort; it's one of the keys to ensuring the implementation of successful schools for young adolescents.

I hope 2006 will be a time to move forward in your commitment to making effective parent communication an ongoing priority.

Sue Swaim is executive director of National Middle School Association.