1.4 The principal’s role in improving and sustaining parent

Parent involvement

Literature supports the notion that parent involvement has a positive impact on student achievement and success in school. Parent involvement is not only incremental in the development of the child but also motivates the schools to function at a higher standard by constantly improving practices.The question for many school administrators is how a principal goes about the process of improving school and parent relations so that the student will have improved learning outcomes.

First, a climate of trust and collaboration between the school and parents is essential for effective planning to establish effective parent involvement programs. A principal must ensure that effective communication is in place and that parents know that their participation in school matters and is critical to student success.

Second, recognize that there is no "cookie cutter" for parental involvement. Each school's requirements will be different, and will be driven by different strengths, and backgrounds, such as its history, culture and climate and student performance. A careful needs assessment and knowledge of the norms and values must be studied before a plan is agreed upon by the stakeholders of the school.

Third, parent involvement is often thought of as a means to raise money or plan special school activities but inreality parent involvement includes any number of activities including reading with children, tutoring, and in some casesmonitoring the cafeteria! There is evidence in the literature that validates that most parents would like to be involved with theschool but need some direction from school personnel on how to help (Epstein&Jansorn, 2004). Some parent may even need training on how they can help their child with their homework math andreading skills, science fair projects and other academic activities. The important thing is to encourage involvement fromparents in whatever form or fashion that they can provide.

Rationale

Parents need to know that whatever they can give in terms of time or resources is appreciated and that it isimportant to the academic and social/emotional development of the child. When parents value education and show it through encouragingtheir child and supporting the school the student realizes the importance of the school and learning. Most people may think thatparent involvement describes only those parents that give time at the school or attend all the activities. In reality parentinvolvement is much more.

Christie (2005) identifies volunteering at the school to be on the lowest rung on the ladder of potential activities for parent involvement. However, its importance should not be trivialized as it does have a positive impact on the student achievement and esteem. Children like to see parents at school and teachers appreciate the hands-on help they get from parents. Christie ranks attendance at school conferences and activities the next lowest on her ladder of importance followed by participation on committees, tutoring and reading one-on-one. More important is that parents make their student accountable for homework, supplying them a good study environment and making sure that they attend school everyday. The highest level of involvement, in Christie's view, is parents having high expectations for their kids in terms of academics and behavior. Theparent that admonishes their student that trouble at school means“double trouble at homeâ€helps to focus their student on being successful and taking advantage of the instruction of the teachers. It is absolutely imperative that students present themselves at school with the appropriate disposition to learn. Anything less will result in lower academic performance. Principals should look closely at the relationships between the teachers, the parents and the community. If schools and parents are connected then there will be a solid relationship, stable attendance at conferences and meetings, parents willing to help, varied methods of communication and materials, collaborative relations between home and school and finally communication between parties is successful. With these elements in place the school and home are connected and the outlook for parent involvement is promising (Wherry, 2005).