GEN 499 Week 1 Assignment

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Apr 3, 2024

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1 Writing the Problem Statement Isabelle Avilla The University of Arizona Global Campus GEN 499: General Education Capstone Joseph Marangell February 20, 2024

2 Parent involvement within our elementary schools Writing the Problem Statement Within every school district we see a lot of faults and where the school districts could do better. However, one of the most common ones we see that everyone has problems with is getting the parents more involved with their child’s events as well as extra curriculars if they have any. Getting parents involved has been hard because everyone has a life so there is not always time for an extra event to add on your plate. When you have children, these things get hard to keep up with and as an educator I completely understand this. After speaking with parents and listening to some suggestions it seems as if we must appeal to the parents’ senses and make it worth their time to volunteer or help with their child’s education. At this moment schools are not doing anything to improve parent involvement and that is putting more stress on school staff. Furthermore, Schools should have their teachers start using conferences with parents to set learning goals for their children and ask for feedback more regularly from parents. Setting Learning Goals for your child Parent Teacher conferences help your child’s teacher to know where you are at when helping them with their education as well as letting you know what your child is doing in class. These conferences can help you and the teacher set attainable goals for your child to work towards during the school year and feel good about when they have accomplished the goal. Parent Teacher conferences do not always have to be because your child did something bad. To start having these conferences it starts with the teacher first and then the parent. The conferences are always about the children and their goals as well as how they are doing in class. A parent teacher conference is created to answer any and all questions from the parents and to ease everyone’s minds on how the child is doing in school. This would promote parent involvement in

3 school because any and all events in the classroom and extra curriculars can be talked about with the teacher and the student can get accommodations or their work early depending on their needs. This really applies to more middle and high school student families more than anything else. The best part about these conferences is they can be at anytime during the school year! Parents love to hear from their child’s teacher on how they are doing, they even love to hear from the coaches on how their child is doing. To make the conference go better you need to remember to always start with something good the child did and end with something good. Especially if there is something that needs to be talked about as in bad behavior. “To help facilitate a productive parent-teacher conference, here is a sample agenda: Start and end by sharing positive comments about the child.” (Blog, 10 Family Engagement Activities for Your Childcare Program 2023). It is always important to remember that even though this happened that the child is still a good student, and the parent deserves to hear it! The final good thing about these conferences is they happen at the school itself so if any further assistance is needed by any other school personnel it can be given as soon as possible. Typically, these happen in the classroom where children’s work is displayed, which is another great thing for parents to see to hopefully motivate them to want to be involved in their child’s school life. Feedback from parents The problem is that our school does not ask for enough parent feedback, so they do not feel as if we want them to be engaged in the school activities. This is having a negative effect on how much the parents volunteer and where they volunteer at within the school district. In order to better serve the parents, schools and the individual teachers should ask for feedback on what they are doing within the school and classroom. “ If families do not feel welcome in their school,

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4 involvement will be low.” (Schools, 24 Activities to Get Families Involved in Schools 2022). One big thing parents always complain about is the friendliness of the school they want to feel welcomed and if they do not feel welcome chances are you are not getting their help with anything. If there is something that the child does at home that can be incorporated at school, it would be great to know and vice versa. The information shared could be about virtually anything appropriate going on at school and how the parents could help. The parents could also provide feedback on what would motivate them more to do volunteer work in their child’s school. Getting feedback at least once a month from parents would help them to feel more involved and eventually ask questions and engage more. The biggest issue schools run into is where to share information at because we cannot give personal cell phone numbers to parents. This could be solved by using the Remind program, Class Dojo, etc. You want to use these because it gives the parents access to open communication with you and as an emergency in case, they need to let you know about something their child has done. Getting parent feedback is easy using these tools to help you. “After you receive their feedback, follow up with families and communicate any steps you’re taking or changes you’ve made so they know their voices are being heard.” (Blog, 10 Family Engagement Activities for Your Childcare Program 2023). Parents want to be heard, especially when it comes to their child being away from them eight hours a day. Rationale I chose this topic because I am a Paraprofessional inside an elementary school at this current moment. I see this problem all around, however, nothing is done to fix this within the school district. I want to help the school I am at improve their parent involvement and I have done this so far by bringing up ways to do so at staff meetings. Being a Para it is hard to help because we are only allowed to do so much that is within our contracts and job descriptions

5 before we are told no because they can not pay us overtime for it. So, my reasoning for picking this topic is really because I know that this problem needs to be addressed and because there is a lot I can do to help with this problem more so than other problems I could have written about instead. Degree of Urgency This is an urgent situation to address because the less parent involvement we have the less we are able to do fun things with our children like school dances and field trips. These events thrive on parent volunteers as well as staff to keep them going and if we have no parents involved then we will have no events for our children to participate in. These events give the kids something to look forward to and something to work towards. It is a reward for them and with no reward at the end of the week or end of the semester they start to loose motivation just like adults do when we have had a hard week. So, the urgency here is again sooner rather than later because the children need these rewards to look forward to. It also looks good on each campus to have parent involvement as much as possible. Conclusion The topic in discussion is important because with family involvement in schools comes a lot of motivation for the children to do better in order to continue to be allowed to have fun rewards to participate in each month. Overall, the way to increase family involvement is by getting parents feedback in any way possible as well as holding conferences with parents to see what they think is and would be best for their child during the school year. Parent feedback is one of the most essential ways to make them feel welcomed and involved. Asking questions should always be encouraged and if problems arise communication is always the key to solving it. Meetings with parents throughout the year keeps their minds at ease and keeps them engage in

6 what their child is doing. This is possible in most schools but not all so really the key thing to remember is communication is key to get family and parent involvement up.

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7 References Blog, B. (2023, October 2). 10 Family Engagement Activities for Your Childcare Program. https://mybrightwheel.com/blog/boost-family-participation-at-your-childcare-center- or-preschool Schools, P. (2022, July 6). 24 Activities to Get Families Involved in Schools . Powerschool.com. https://www.powerschool.com/blog/24-activities-to-get-families-involved-in- schools/

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