Comunicados y Avisos Ministerio de Modernización
MINISTERIO DE MODERNIZACIÓN RESOLUCIÓN N.° 475/MMGC/
Research has shown that a deciding factor in the school success of children and adolescents is parental support of their educational path. It has been demonstrated that, when parents are involved, children and adolescents have more positive attitudes and behaviours, and achieve better results. Certain characteristics of the family environment constitute risk or protection factors, which directly affect the school success of children from these environments. There are many obstacles to school-family collaboration in vulnerable environments given the higher number of risk factors related to poverty, low levels of education and unemployment. Therefore, it is important to provide special support to parents in these environments.
It has been noted in schools that it is often difficult to get the parents involved. The situation deteriorates as the child becomes older and goes from elementary to secondary school. If parent involvement is already marginal at the elementary level, it declines significantly when the child reaches secondary school (J.S. Eccles, R.D. Harold, 1993). This situation becomes particularly worrisome at adolescence.
According to researcher Joyce Epstein (1991), when teachers believe in the value of working with families and integrate this idea into their professional practice, this collaboration has a major impact. Thus, parents increase their interaction with their children at home. They are more aware of their ability to help their child learn and have more confidence in the teachers. Students, in turn, improve their grades and develop a more positive attitude toward school. The benefits of parental and family commitment also include higher attendance rates and more perseverance in school, particularly at the secondary level, an increase in homework being done, improved graduation rates and higher enrollment in postsecondary education.
This is why the Supporting Montréal Schools Program requires that each school inspire, support and reinforce collaborative relationships between the school and parents, where each party is responsible for the role played regarding the child or adolescent. This in no way means that the purpose of the program is to change parental practices so that they are in line with school expectations. Agreeing that the parent is and remains the primary educator of the child is imperative.
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in their children’s learning successes
Moving toward real collaboration between schools and families
In general, the traditional approach to parental participation has involved schools sending information to the home. In this type of arrangement, it is usually the schools that are suggesting to parents “how” things should be done, which appears to imply that parents' parenting practices need to be "corrected." From this point of view, parents are not considered as bona fide partners in their children’s education. The result is that this collaborative model does not encourage parental participation in the schools.
It is therefore necessary to adopt new attitudes to the type of collaboration that schools wish to have with families as well to develop strategies that will enable schools to reach as many parents as possible. In disadvantaged neighbourhoods, the focus must be on the inherent strengths of each family (D. Davies, 1991).
At Johns Hopkins University, Joyce Epstein and her team have developed a classification system for the different forms of collaboration between schools and families. This system helps promote the integration of educational practices since parents' participation in their children's or teenagers' educational paths can take a variety of forms and occur at different locations. The following table outlines these forms.
Forms of collaboration between schools and families based on Joyce Epstein’s family involvement model
✏ Facilitate the role of parent. Support parents so that they can fully assume their role and responsibilities with regard to the well-being, health and safety of their children.
✏ Improve communication between schools and parents. Implement efficient and diversified means of communication between schools and families with regard to the educational program, school behaviour rules, school events and progress made by the parents' children. Communication also concerns the way in which parents are greeted at school and how accessible messages are to parents from different cultural communities.
✏ Encourage parents to participate in school life. This means recruiting and facilitating the participation of parents or parent groups so that they can fully contribute to school life through different activities.
✏ Inform parents about ways to improve learning at home. Support and provide ways to parents so they can better help and encourage their children or teenagers with their homework, have the opportunity to give their input with regard to school learning activities and benefit from daily family activities that also promote learning.
✏ Make it easier for parents to participate in school decision-making processes. Involve parents in decisions about the school and their children (e.g. their children's educational paths) via governing boards, committees or other parent organizations.
✏ Respond to the needs of the family with the help of the community. Identify the resources and services available in the community (community, social, cultural, institutional and economic partners) that could be of interest to families, students and the school community and, if need be, integrate them with the school's resources and services.
Moreover, to ensure active parental participation and establish a real climate of trust, the Supporting Montréal Schools Program is encouraging schools to give priority initially to the means used to communicate with families, since this is the basis of every form of collaboration.
In order to reach larger numbers of parents, parental participation should be integrated as much as possible into projects developed along with other program measures. Special attention must also be paid to adapting services and activities to the needs of immigrant families.
A few examples of collaboration…
The following are examples of steps taken by schools to encourage the participation of parents in their children's or teenagers' educational paths.
✏ Family literacy activities to encourage parents to interact on a daily basis with their children concerning book reading at home (see Measure 2 on learning to read).
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Parents and grandparents read to children during the story hour as part of emergent literacy activities at the preschool level and in daycare.✏ In multiethnic communities, a story-reading activity in the heritage language and in the language of instruction, held in school on Saturdays, is offered to preschool children and their parents. The stories are chosen by parents and teaching staff. The parents telling the stories receive training, and a few teachers participate in the Saturday activities. One of the objectives of this project is to facilitate communication between the parents and teaching staff.
✏ In other projects, parents organize or supervise homework assistance programs.
✏ In multiethnic communities, parents with a good knowledge of French receive training in interpretation from educators at the Banque interrégionale d'interprètes of the Régie régionale de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal-Centre. They then become school resource persons for activities such as coffee get-togethers and school visits involving new parents at the start of the school year.
✏ In order to diversify the types of collaboration with families and to promote better communication between families and schools, several partner schools decided to assess the current level of support provided to parents in their neighbourhoods, identify the priority needs of families with regard to the different forms of collaboration with schools and develop projects that are likely to satisfy these needs. All educators working with families are participating in this project.
✏ Certain schools are implementing a system to facilitate regular telephone contact with parents on their children's progress or achievements.
✏ A support group for parents whose children are starting to read was formed so that parents could exchange ideas and share tips.
✏ With regard to the guidance-oriented school (see Measure 3), parents have been invited to class to tell students about their jobs.
✏ In multiethnic communities, parents were invited to take part in cultural outings with their children. This helped facilitate their integration and contributed to expanding the number and types of outings as a family.
✏ When setting up a bank of parent volunteers, a school sent a questionnaire to parents for them to identify their interests. The school refers to this information to have parents become involved based on their interests.
✏ Steps have been taken to make the school team aware of the specific characteristics and needs of children attending school (information sessions for school staff).
✏ At the secondary level, special support was provided to parents so that they could, in turn, provide support and supervision for their teenagers who are frequently absent from school. A parent support network was created where parents can discuss following up on at-risk adolescents. These means, designed to facilitate communication between family members, have helped reduce school absenteeism.
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in their children’s learning successes
Guidelines, tools and other documents
Certain guidelines have been suggested to ensure the quality of actions regarding collaboration between schools and families. Thus, the following should be done as often as possible:
✏ Involve all parents in activities relating to the different measures.
✏ Become involved, especially with parents of at-risk students and parents of students from cultural communities.
✏ Ensure that the teaching staff is involved with the families, especially in the preparation and carrying out of activities for parents.
✏ Provide the teaching staff and others working with parents with opportunities for professional development related to this measure.
✏ Carry out activities regularly, not sporadically.
The following tools promoting parental participation are also available to schools through the Supporting Montréal Schools Program:
✏ an interpretation and translation service provided by the Banque interrégionale d'interprètes of the Régie régionale de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal-Centre
✏ videos describing several projects of interest to schools
To help schools enhance their collaboration with parents, the tools below are currently under development and will be made available to schools that intend to incorporate activities promoting parent involvement.
✏ A questionnaire identifying the parents' needs with regard to the school
✏ A reflection tool, for school staff, for listing practices designed to encourage parental participation ✏ A user guide, encouraging the optimal use of these tools
When teaching staff say “I couldn’t work without the help of my students' families and the support of the community," and when certain parents say "We really need to know what is going on in the school so that we can better support our children," they are giving concrete expression to overlapping social contexts in which children can grow (Joyce Epstein, 1995). This collaboration is the result of a series of actions, exchanges and activities designed to help school staff and parents work together. It is also typical of a long-term approach where participative activities occur frequently and regularly.