Subject:  Potential Role for Adult Education in the Parent Involvement Provisions of the

               Re-authorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act

             The No Child Left Behind legislation assigns considerable responsibility (in Section 1118 – Parent Involvement) to parents to become more involved in the education of their children, and to States, school districts and individual schools to ensure that this involvement is achieved. 

 Parents may be asked to:

·        Help develop plans

·        Help formulate and evaluate the success of parent involvement policy

·        Interpret reports on school  curriculum, effectiveness, and structure

·        Help schedule, and participate in, meetings

Observe in the classroom

·        Select providers of supplemental services

·        Select alternative schools for their children and make arrangements for transportation thereto

·        Submit comments on proposed plans and policies

·        Participate in parent advisory councils

·        Monitor children’s attendance, homework, and television viewing

·        Volunteer in the child’s classroom

 Helping parents deal with this imposing array of activity is primarily the responsibility of the local education agency – monitored by the State Education Agency.  LEA’s are charged to: 

·        Reach agreement with  parents of participating children and distribute to these parents a written parent involvement policy

·        Provide coordination and technical assistance in implementing  successful parent involvement in activities designed to improve student achievement and school performance

·        Coordinate and integrate parent involvement strategies with parent involvement strategies of  other relevant Federal programs

·        Conduct, with involvement of parents an annual evaluation of the effectiveness of parent involvement policy with particular attention to parents who are economically disadvantaged or have limited proficiency in English, to design and revise strategies to improve the involvement of these groups.

·        Reserve not less than 1% of an LEA’s subpart 2 allocation to carry out the above – including promoting family literacy and parenting skills.

 In addition, each school served under this Act must: 

·        Jointly develop with, and distribute to, parents of participating children a written parent involvement policy, agreed on by such parents

·        Amend any existing school or LEA policy pertaining to all parents in order to accommodate special groups with barriers to participation

·        Allow parents to submit comments on the LEA plan to the SEA

·        Convene an annual meeting of parents, and offer a flexible schedule of meetings to follow

·        Involve parents in an organized, ongoing, and timely way in the  planning, review and improvement of programs 

If the School is involved in a “schoolwide” program, the school must:

·        Involve the parents in the development of the schoolwide plan

·        Provide parents with timely information, including a description of the curriculum to be used

·        Build ties between the parents and the school

·        Coordinate parent involvement programs with those of other relevant Federal programs

·        Ensure that communications with parents are in language that they understand

·        Give parents an opportunity to append comments on the schoolwide plan that is submitted to the LEA

·        Jointly develop with parents a school-parent compact by which both share responsibility for improved student academic achievement

·        Include in the compact a mandate for teacher-parent conferences, frequent progress reports to parents on children’s progress, reasonable access to staff,  and opportunities to volunteer and to observe classroom activities

·        Provide assistance to parents in comprehending State and local academic standards

·        Provide materials and training to help parents work with their children to improve the3ir children’s achievement, such as literacy training and using technology to foster parent involvement

·        Educate teachers, principals and other staff to value contributions of parents and work with them as equal partners

 The school may:

·        Involve parents in professional development of school staff

·        Provide necessary parent  literacy training from funds received from the Act if the LEA has depleted other funds for this purpose

·        Pay necessary and reasonable expenses related to parent involvement activities such as transportation and child care costs

·        Train parents to enhance the involvement of other parents

·        Plan a flexible schedule of meetings and devise strategies to involve parents who cannot attend meetings

·        Adopt and implement model approaches to parental involvement

·        Establish a district-wide parent advisory council

·        Develop appropriate roles for community based organizations

The major problem with this impressive array of opportunities for, and responsibilities of, parents is that the very parents that the schools most want to involve are the least likely to have the communications skills needed to make that involvement effective.  Moreover, many are intimidated by the school setting.  Adult education programs can play an important role in enhancing LEA and school efforts to reach this population.  They can: 

·        Train school staff in techniques of dealing with educationally disadvantaged adults, especially those inclined to avoid formal educational institutions

·        Monitor communications between schools and parents to make language simpler and more direct – irrespective of the language in which they are delivered

·        Use their contacts with community-based organizations to bring messages to and from the community

·        Offer neutral meeting venues in which adults achieve a comfort level

·        Provide basic education and English as a second language – often in a “family literacy” package - to those able to participate

·        Provide training in use of computers and e-mail

·        Include in family literacy curriculum information about school structure, academic standards, meeting behavior, and how to work with schools to help their children succeed