Having Parent Support is Key to Student Achievement

As an educator of students from all different backgrounds and socioeconomic conditions, I can confidently say that parents' involvement in their child’s education is the single most important factor in that child's success. What is parent involvement? Schools emphasize the importance of parent involvement, but parent involvement can mean many different things.

Traditionally, parent involvement involves things like chaperoning a field trip, putting up bulletin boards, or assisting with the lunch hour. This is unrealistic for many families. However, parent involvement does not mean the parent has to be in the school building. In fact, the best parent involvement doesn’t require knowledge of subject material or attending school functions.

A parent that inquires about their child’s learning, helps with making homework a pleasant routine, and shows support for their child’s accomplishments is an involved parent. Demonstrating to your child the value you have for education has a tremendous impact.

The impact of parent involvement can be seen more acutely when it isn’t strong.  When levels of poverty increase in a school, student achievement often declines.  The key reason for this is the inability of the parent to give attention to their child’s education because parents often have to take on another job and focus on making ends meet.

Family stresses from depression, neglect and even violence dramatically increase when families are faced with poverty. When the most basic needs of our children aren’t met, it makes focusing on schoolwork very challenging. Students that come to school hungry, tired, unfocused, stressed, or otherwise ill-prepared are not in a position to do well or even care.

All parents love their children and all children can learn. Supporting parents with easy ways for them to be involved is a critical responsibility that has become part of our jobs as educators. As a community, we need to support our families in need when times are tough. Making sure our students are ready to learn and supporting the parents with simple ways to be involved is critical to improving schools. As a community, we must provide a safety net when times are tough if we are going to expect great things from our children.

Our Racine community is going through an especially tough time. The number of students that live under or close to the poverty level has increased significantly in recent years. Still, our parents do their best to support their children, and our schools work tirelessly to find ways to help parents be involved. Our community’s role is to provide support for families in need through donations, community service, and tax dollar allocations. An “all hands on deck” approach to raising student achievement in Racine is the only way we will see the results we expect and need.