When a home burns down we look for the cause and make plans to prevent any thing so tragic from happening again. We extend the on ramp on a highway because a child lost their life in an accident. We often make change as the result of a catastrophe. Being proactive in eating well and exercising often, for many is just not in the things to do for the day. We get comfortable in the way we do things and unless accident happens we do little to change the patterns we follow each day.
And so it is the same in education. We don’t proclaim the need for parent involvement until an accident happens and everyone comes to put out the fire. A school fails the national standards testing, a parent group berates, a principal or school board in the press. A parent rants as a teacher blaming them for their child’s failures.
Seldom do we think of ways to prevent the parent involvement accident. With all the pressures of a day in the life a teacher, parent involvement is so seldom in the list of things to do.
In comes Dr. Joyce Epstein and the six types involvement model of school family partnerships to make the practice of parent involvement easily integrated in to the school day. Listen to Dr. Epstein live tonight Monday March 3 at 9:00 pm EST (GMT-5).
Prevent the accident before it happens.
