Family Involvement at School I Enjoy Working

Family Involvement at School I enjoy working with the students at my school tremendously. At the K-8 school in Borough Park Brooklyn NY, there are largely Chinese and Hispanic demographics. Working with students and parents is what will prove crucial in improving the academic success of the students. There are a number of things that are happening at my school in regards to family-involvement that are really making me excited for the improvement of the students' academic success.

A lot of my Chinese-American students do get a lot of parent involvement at home. I hear from the students that their parents help them with daily homework and even push them to go beyond that day's lesson in order to prepare for the next upcoming lessons. In fact, I do see a heightened level of at-home parent involvement with the Chinese-American students, probably more so than any other demographic of students at the school.

This is exciting because I am happy to see parents taking such a large interest in their children's academic well-being and success. To have parent's actively supporting lessons at home means that the students will really internalize the material so much more than if they just learned it at school and forgot about it at home. It is an amazing support tool that one cannot match anywhere else.

Additionally, as the school adopts programs that are more bilingual, it is encouraging to see much more involvement from Hispanic parents as well. With outlets for these parents to participant in Spanish, they often come to more school events and speak with staff and teachers much more than in previous years, where there was much less bilingual resources. This is exciting because it allows for a whole new dialogue to open up so that these parents can be more active and supportive in their children's academic lives.

Still, there are some clear gaps between parents and school staff that is causing a lag in parent involvement. These are issues that I hope to see resolved in the near future. For example, many of the Chinese-American students see a lot of at-hoe parent involvement, but not at-school parent involvement. For a lot of the Chinese-American parents, there is a disconnect between them and the actual school facilities.

I can see that they push their children to do well in school and that there is such high levels of at-home involvement, but sometimes I fear that they do not trust the school system, or that the are clearly critical of teachers and administrators here at the school. It is crucial for school staff to reach out to these parents and create a much more trusting relationship.

I hope that I can reach out and show that the school is trustworthy and that we welcome their involvement, both on and off campus. Additionally, I hope that the school can start to adopt more culturally sensitive practices. This may include having more materials translated into Chinese, but also involving more of the culture in the daily activities of the students as well. I know of a lot of schools in California that have adopted many Mexican traditions and celebrations into.