Best practices suggest that when communities, schools, and families work together, the results are stronger communities that support the success of young people. The challenges schools face today in fostering true parental engagement are the result of a multitude of complex issues, some of which we will examine in this course.

By the end of this course, you will have completed an in-depth analysis of ways schools are successfully meeting the parent-school connection challenge. In addition, you will explore and adapt strategies to create that connection in ways that meet the specific needs of your school and community.

Course Objectives

• Explain the importance and assess the challenges of maintaining open lines of communication with parents.
• Establish methods and strategies to keep lines of communication open with parents of diverse backgrounds.
• Identify ways to share the same values of caring for students with parents.
• Design procedures for supporting and encouraging parents throughout the year.
• Identify ways a school can support parents in reinforcing and extending learning at home.
• Create lesson materials that allow parents to reinforce or extend learning at home.
• Assess the benefits to the teacher, the parent, and the student of recruiting parents as school volunteers.
• Create methods for involving parents in the school as volunteers.
• Assess the benefits to the school and the community of making all community members into school stakeholders.
• Create opportunities for community support of and participation in school events.
• Analyze the benefits and challenges of involving the larger community in school-level decision making.
• Create mechanisms for including all stakeholders in school-level decision making.

Syllabus

(ASCD PD Online course, 2011) Reimagined self-paced asynchronous online course. Upon completion, learners will be awarded an ASCD Certificate worth up to 20 Clock Hours.