Reaching the Hardest-to-Involve Parents: Powerful Partnerships Under NCLB		The International Center has experienced consultants who can train teachers in how to increase all types of parent involvement.  Workshops cover how to organize for success, reach the hardest-to-involve parents, conduct meaningful staff and parent workshops, and form partnerships with parents to improve students performance, attendance, and behavior.
Every school that receives Title I money is required to develop with parents a written parent involvement policy and to involve parents in an organized and ongoing way in the planning, review, and improvement of school programs.   Increasing parent involvement in schools has been a goal of educators for decades. The reason why is clear.   Research has shown that:   ·         Involving the parents of students in their education and the life of the school can pay dividends in raising student achievement. Epstein,  J.L. Education and Urban Society, 19 (1987)   ·         A comprehensive effort to improve parent involvement and education enhances the school program and can bring improved results.  Epstein, Coates, Salinas , Sanders, and Simon. School, Family and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action (1997)   ·         A study of 20,000 high school students and their families found that when parents participate in their children’s education, the result is an increase in student achievement and an improvement in students’ attitudes.  Steinberg, Brown, Bradford, and Dornbush. Beyond the Classroom: Why School Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need To Do (1996)   Reaching the Hardest-to-Involve Parents helps schools address student achievement by involving all parents in the education of their children at school and in the home.   Reaching the Hardest-to-Involve Parents is a turnkey training program that shows educators and parents how to organize for action by creating a Parent Partnership Team; plan and implement strategies to remove the barriers parents face in being more involved with the school; and evaluate the success of the efforts.   Barriers to interacting with the school for some parents include transportation problems, strict work schedules, lack of childcare, negative school experiences, and difficulty in speaking English. A Parent Partnership Team can address these issues once they are understood.   ·         Most barriers to parent involvement are found within school practices, not within parents.  White-Clark and Decker. The “Hard-to-Reach” Parent: Old Challenges, New Insights (1996)   Schools must be “parent-friendly” institutions. This resource kit can help make that happen. Reaching the Hardest-to-Involve Parents includes a CD-ROM with copies of all forms in Microsoft Word.      $295   This kit was originally entitled No Parent Left Behind: Reaching the Hardest-to-Involve Parents. For more information and an order form, please click here. This is a pdf file and you will need Adobe Reader to open it. You can download Adobe Reader for free by clicking here.
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