AGAINST THE CLOCK

All but gone are the days when mothers regularly made baked goods in their homes to take to their children's classroom parties or spent hours sitting at home helping a child memorize his multiplication tables.

Today's parents have precious little time to spare, thanks to increased hours spent at work or other activities outside the home.

But educators and parents agree that parental involvement is important and is exactly what children of all ages need to excel as students.

"It's simply that time is a critical issue, and most people are out there working," said Sue Ferguson, chairperson of the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education. "Schools have always worked with families on supporting their kids at home, but I do think parents don't have the same time available they used to have. We don't live in an economy to support that."

Ferguson said schools are waging a continual war against the time constraints families now face in an effort to encourage parent-child interaction in schools as well as in the home.

Creativity is key in their efforts, which include everything from encouraging parents to join their school's Parent Teacher Organization to teaching parents parenting skills.

Proactive or elicited

Cathy Huskey, who teaches seventh-grade social studies at Louis J. Schultz School, said she typically sees two types of parental involvement -- proactive and elicited.

Proactive parents review their children's homework, are interested in their activities and readily contact teachers or school principals with questions about problems or services provided by the school, said Huskey.

However, elicited parental involvement -- when faculty make the contact with parents -- generally occurs with parents who are uninvolved in their children's education and unwilling to enter the school setting because of self-doubt, lack of time or other reasons.

"Sometimes I have to reassure them that they're not doing a bad job, because sometimes parents feel like they're out there alone and fighting a battle no one else has fought," said Huskey. "The more active the parents are, the more familiar I am with a parent, and the better the child usually responds to me."

Regina Egbuka, who works as a family advocate for the Cape Girardeau Head Start program, said she has a first-hand knowledge of the difficulty schools face in getting parents physically inside the school.

Stresses in the home, including problems with transportation, finances and lack of parenting skills, can frustrate parents and discourage them from getting involved with their kids, she said. And, as a single mother of three children, she faces the same problems that she daily helps other parents overcome.

"I try to stay involved, and I also check with teachers at least once or twice a month to see how my kids are doing in school," said Egbuka. "I definitely don't get enough time, but I always try to squeeze in some time."

Cape Girardeau School District offers a variety of programs to encourage parental involvement within schools. While the traditional room mother is welcomed -- especially at the elementary school level -- parents also can volunteer as office aides, readers, hallway or lunchroom monitors.

There are also many programs -- including a variety of booster clubs at the secondary level -- that encourage parents to become involved in their children's academic and extra-curricular activities.

Learning FAST

Egbuka is a graduate of the Family and Schools Together (FAST) program provided by Caring Communities, an interagency organization that works within the school setting to provide social workers, counseling and other services families may need to help student achievement.

The local FAST program is based on a national model which uses parent-professional teams to help parents who feel alone, are too busy to connect with their children, and lack support from other adults.

The teams meet with up to 15 families weekly for eight weeks to improve one-on-one interaction and communication skills between parents and children.

"We feel if we can help with those things, then we can help the kids become better students," said Betty Freeman, who coordinates the FAST program. "What we find is the teachers and parents become closer and are more willing to contact each other, and the relationships between the parent and child improves, too."

Definite benefits

Egbuka said her children excelled academically prior to entering the FAST program, but the program has definite benefits for the families who participate.

"I learned that you need to try to make time for your child individually, even if you're spending time with your family," she said.

In addition to skill-building programs like FAST, Caring Communities and Cape Girardeau schools also are working to improve parental involvement by establishing Neighboring Advisory Committee (NAC) boards at the elementary schools. The NAC boards -- which include parents, teachers, school administrators and community members -- meet periodically to review the benefits of programs being implemented in the schools.

The boards are more formal than traditional parent-teacher organizations and only consider programs geared toward meeting specific goals, including increased parental involvement in students' education.

Chris Musgrave, a married mother of four, is in her first year of membership on the Jefferson Elementary School NAC board. She became involved in the group, which meets monthly in the evenings, after her oldest son was having trouble in the school.

"I was already involved, but I just feel more informed since I joined the NAC," she said. "I really like being on the NAC because I have some say in what's going on in our school."

Freeman said the NAC boards are supposed to be family centered. By involving parents in making decisions, student achievement and behavior begin to reflect the values of the community, and those values become visible outside the school setting, she said.

"It's a community thing," said Freeman. "When we get the community involved, they get a better view of what our children are going through in the schools, and then they can inform other people in the community."

PARENTAL INVOLVMENT

These parental involvement types are often used by educators seeking to improve the rate and quality of parental involvement in students' lives:

TYPE 1 - PARENTING

Help all families establish home environments to support children as students.

TYPE 2 - COMMUNICATING

Design more effective forms of school-to-home and home-to-school communications with all families each year about school programs and their children's progress.

TYPE 3 - VOLUNTEERING

Recruit and organize parent help and support.

TYPE 4 - LEARNING AT HOME

Provide information and ideas to families about how to help students at home with homework and other curricular-related activities, decisions and planning.

TYPE 5 - DECISION MAKING

Includes parents in school decisions, developing parent leaders and representatives.

TYPE 6 - COLLABORATING WITH COMMUNITY

Identify and integrate resources and services from the community to strengthen school programs, family practices and student learning and development.

Source: Project Appleseed