[blparent] Parent Digest, Vol 148, Issue 4

[Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter]

Increased security has been happening in high schools since the late 90s.
Grammar schools weren't overly affected until much more recently, and it's
exactly because of the growing concern with school shootings, which have
sadly happened in grammar schools too. Increased security has nothing to do
with NCLB but because of the increase in violence.

My mom is a Kindergarten teacher, and I hear a lot of the teacher
perspective from her. She agrees most schools, public in particular, are not
focused on the correct things, not individualized enough, and the lack of
parent volunteers does not help. She quit teaching at public school this
year and is now at a private school because she's tired of the politics and
teaching only for benchmark results. She wants the freedom to teach in a
creative manner that's individualized and not have to have frequent
administrative intervention.

Parents are encouraged to be active in their child's education. They
definitely want parents involved and informed, but this is not the same as
volunteering for school. Parent involvement pertains more to attending
parent/teacher conferences, communicating regularly with the teacher along
with the child, so you're aware of what is happening at school. Reading all
communications sent home from the school, and discussing pertinent things
with the child. Being involved with homework. If your child has an IEP,
being actively engaged and aware of your child's specific needs and how they
are progressing or declining, whichever the case may be. Parent involvement
is all about the needs of one's specific child (children) and being
knowledgeable of what happens with them.

Parent volunteering is a great way for parents to be informed and feel
connected to a school, but volunteer opportunities tend to be more limited
nowadays then they used to be. Volunteer opportunities do exist, but they do
not often pertain to instruction now. Most classes do not allow parents to
participate in teaching activities with children during the school day.
Once, parents could volunteer to help out in the classroom during the school
day, and not just for class parties, but for helping with instruction. Most
schools want "professionals" to do this now. I agree, having some baseline
training is a good thing, but allowing parents to help with reading or
writing projects or arts and crafts or whatever the assignment is. A teacher
supervises, but most parents are capable of helping in some capacity like
this.

Most schools still utilize parent volunteers for school/class parties and
activities, extra supervision on field trips, of course, parent/teacher
groups still exist, some after-school programs and things like this, but for
actual time in the classroom to help with instruction, it's not common,
especially where I live.

Bridgit

Message: 2
Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2016 11:25:49 -0500
From: "Robert Shelton" <rshelton1 at gmail.com>
To: <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blparent] Volunteering in your child's classroom
Message-ID: <008101d205ff$d5621520$80263f60$@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

Thanks for this interesting post. It has been some time since my boys were
in school, but I remember that Linda, my wife, was extensively involved in
volunteer activities, and I was occasionally invited into the classroom as
well. I'd like to know to what extent these changes have happened in our
school district, and will try to find out for my own information. From my
own experience, I have observed that student achievement is well correlated
with parent involvement in the schools, and has been mentioned elsewhere, is
a good idea for other reasons.

While I'm not a big fan of NCLB, I have to wonder if the reason for
increased security might be the sad history of crazy people walking into
schools with assault rifles and committing mass murder. Also, while most of
us have fond memories of homemade goodies, safe not sorry is probably the
right answer when it comes to food safety.

Finally, if the school system is going to be paying paraeducators to teach
our kids, I don't have any problem with insisting on some level of
accreditation. Of course academic credentials don't capture everything about
a person's abilities, they at least establish a baseline.