Educators have always known how critical it is to deeply involve parents and families in the education of children. Whether it was our board president in Santa Ana reminding us all that “parents are our secret sauce,” or the common refrain amongst educators that “parents are students’ first teachers,” there is a common understanding that parent involvement is critical to the educational process of our students. Yet in the context of a busy school year, parent engagement can creep down the list of priorities.
The pandemic has brought parents back into the equation in a powerful way. Of course many parents, myself included, have felt overwhelmed at times with the amount of attention and time required to support the learning of our own kids – especially for our youngest learners, for whom distance learning can pose a real challenge. Yet despite the challenges, parents around the world have been invited to be involved in new and powerful ways.
For example, at the Lincoln School, our preschool and elementary teachers have held individualized meetings with every student and family during the week leading up to the first day of school. This personalized attention gave students the opportunity to introduce family members (and pets) to the teacher, show them their personal work spaces, and strengthen the teacher/student relationship. While new students at the school have always enjoyed a personal evaluation and intake interview, this year was the first year that every student and parent had the chance to connect individually with their teacher.
Similarly, Lincoln has offered a number of virtual parent orientation meetings and welcome back to school events during the weeks leading up to school starting. While these types of meetings had been offered in past years at the school, staff unanimously reported that attendance at the virtual meetings was much higher than it had been for in-person events in past years. One of our directors commented that even when physical classes resume, she plans to continue with virtual parent meeting options to make it easier for some parents to participate.
Most importantly, when students are learning at home, teachers become increasingly dependent on parents to provide structure and support for the learning. In this sense, schools have finally come to see parents as full partners in the successful learning of our students. We increasingly rely on parents for feedback about the effectiveness of our distance learning efforts. At Lincoln, for example, our preschool and kindergarten parents shared a number of concerns about how school was structured during the previous semester, and offered suggestions for how it could be more successful. We listened, and the dialogue has led to improvements.
Undoubtedly, as we navigate another semester of distance learning together, the two-way dialogue will be critical for ensuring that we are reaching every student. Of course, we will make mistakes. Both parenting and teaching are deeply human endeavors that require constant reflection and renewed efforts to try again. While the challenges are very real – for both parents and educators – there perhaps has never been a stronger shared commitment to work together to make the best of it for the benefit of our kids.