Action Research Project Title: How can we increase parental involvement?
Blog URL: cobleactionresearch.blogspot.com
Number of AR Project Documented Hours: 25 hours
AR Project Summary (at least 250 words): This was a preliminary project in increasing parental involvement on our campus. In June, I was part of a group of teacher from my campus that were sent to a parental involvement conference. The team is comprised of teachers from various subject areas, and our district parental involvement coordinator. We were charged with the task of acquiring tools at the conference to bring back and begin increasing parental involvement on our campus. The conference was jam-packed with information and suggestions on how to build on current parental involvement and make improvements, regardless of the stage the school might be in. From this conference, I worked with another co-worker in developing an inservice for teachers about creating parental involvement opportunities in their classroom. We developed handouts and samples of monthly newsletters teachers could send out to parents to keep communication open. The response to this inservice was very positive- teachers were delighted to have resources in their hands that were able to be modified to fit their classroom and increase parental involvement in our school. We also created a parent survey to send out to all of the parents in our district. This survey had a paper and an online form, and contained lists of ways parents could say they’d most likely get involved at school. At this time, we are still working on taking the survey data, and creating programs based on the results. The mentor program I have drawn up in this course will be a branch of this research project.
