The Final Word: Sustaining Involvement
Make some of these additional ideas part of your strategy to ensure sustained parent involvement:
Encourage parents to participate continuously throughout the length of the school year.
Be patient with parents. Some may be reluctant to get involved due to any number of extenuating circumstances. Keep trying, and never give up on any parent.
Encourage parents to participate in the affairs of the unit through volunteering, observing, or sharing their hobbies, vocations, or vacations.
Use your students as “recruiters” to get their own parents involved. Solicit their ideas as much as possible.
Reward and/or recognize parents for their efforts, however small. Everyone likes to receive some form of recognition, and parents are no exception.
It is vitally important that you be friendly, down to earth, and truly interested in parents and their children.
Most important: communicate to parents the fact that their involvement is ultimately for the benefit of their children.
The bonds established between home and school can be powerful ones in terms of the effectiveness of any classroom program. When parents are employed as partners in the classroom, students are afforded a wealth of exciting educational possibilities.
