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ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 16, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Recognizing the role that family engagement plays as part of a comprehensive strategy to keep teens in school and ensure that they graduate prepared for the future, AT&T*, United Way Worldwide, and Harvard Family Research Project today unveiled a toolkit that will help schools, educators, community organizations and PTAs develop and execute more effective strategies that engage families in helping at-risk high school students get back on track.

The Family Engagement for High School Success Toolkit is designed to help nonprofits develop strong parent-school-community partnerships and provide networks of support to keep students on the path to high school graduation. Developed by United Way and the Harvard Family Research Project with financial support from AT&T, the toolkit will help local United Ways and other nonprofits:

Identify how to spot ninth graders who are at risk of dropping out, considering factors such as attendance, behavior and academic performance.

Enlist and enroll the right partners and work creatively to reach parents of at-risk kids.

Work with parents, schools and partners to apply research-based strategies and promising practices to get at-risk students back on track to graduate high school.

The toolkit was developed as part of a family engagement pilot project that AT&T supported with a $2 million contribution to United Way in 2009. This initiative allowed 15 local United Ways to work with their communities to pioneer strategies for bringing families, school leaders, community partners and students together. The toolkit distills the successes, strategies and lessons learned in the 15 pilots to help other communities plan and implement effective family engagement approaches to help kids stay in school.

"Adult caregivers and other family members play a critical role in keeping students engaged and motivated to succeed in school," said Beth Shiroishi, AT&T vice president of Sustainability and Philanthropy. "This toolkit will help communities across the country develop effective strategies to maximize the powerful asset that families can be when engaged in their students' education."

"Community issues are best solved when people and sectors work together," said Brian Gallagher, president and CEO of United Way Worldwide. "Strengthening education must mean both greater parental engagement and ensuring that entire communities are involved in a young person's success. The toolkit is an important strategy in meeting United Way's goal of cutting our nation's high school dropout rate by half."

"Research shows that family engagement in education can lead to higher academic achievement and an increased likelihood of high school graduation," said Dr. Heather Weiss, Founder and Director of the Harvard Family Research Project. "This is particularly true when families receive support from both school and community resources to help them participate in their children's learning."

The toolkit also helps communities learn to listen more closely to families to determine what might be preventing kids from succeeding. For example, disadvantaged parents and those with language barriers expressed that access to more information - websites, flyers, text messages and multilingual phone calls - helped them feel more equipped to assist their children.

In Las Vegas, schools created ninth grade parent orientations as a result of the findings.

In Gurnee, IL, United Way is mobilizing partners to organize parent-staff meetings at non-school locations.

United Way of Southeast Missouri found recruiting, training and deploying disadvantaged parents to serve as liaisons between schools, families and community organizations helped with students' educational progress.

United Way of Southern Cameron County in Brownsville, TX, discovered that a major predictor to students dropping out of high school was not low-income or limited English proficiency, but more than seven absences in eighth grade and failing two or more sections of the end-of-year assessment. Armed with this new data, the school shifted its focus for ninth grade retention programs, and was able to target the most at-risk kids and get them back on track.

AT&T is committed to advancing education, strengthening communities and improving lives. As evidence of its commitment, AT&T launched Aspire, a $100 million high school success and workforce readiness initiative in April 2008. AT&T Aspire is one of the largest-ever corporate commitments to address high school success and workforce readiness.

The toolkit is available online at www.hfrp.org/HighSchoolSuccessToolkit

MONTREAL - The supplies have been bought, the uniform hemmed or cuffed, and the bus stop located. Parents of students just beginning their school careers have met all the material requirements of a successful transition to formal schooling. But many still wonder uncomfortably if there is more they can do. Are there ways to improve the chances that their child will succeed? The flashiest backpack or largest collection of crayon colours will not encourage academic achievement.

In real estate there is an old saying that everything depends on location, location, location. When developing the intellectual curiosity of children there is an equally true maxim: Engagement, engagement, engagement.

Parents question how they can develop inquisitive, successful children who will develop into contributing members of society. They invest in pricey “educational” toys and the latest electronic gadgets, yet too often ignore the most effective tool of all: their own interaction with children.

How often have you been to a family restaurant and seen parents sitting next to each other catching up on their day while junior sits alone or with siblings colouring the kiddie menu or trying to achieve a new high score on Angry Birds? Worse, how often have you witnessed a similar scenario, only with the two parents carrying on separate cellphone conversations?

This is an ideal time to foster intergenerational communication. It not only shows that you are interested in your child, but it demonstrates that her ideas are important and that adults will listen and take them seriously. Perhaps the highlight of the daycare day is not that fascinating to you, but it sure is to your child. Ask questions about it. What made him laugh? What made her sad? What activity would he like to see carried over to tomorrow?

Do not preach, teach or dominate the discussion. Adults talk to children quite enough; talking with them signifies another, more intimate level. This conversation will be a building block for the future. And the fact that it occurred will be remembered much more vividly than another serving of nuggets, the colouring or the new high score.

I have worked in almost a dozen elementary and secondary schools around Montreal. Many students thrived; too many fell by the academic wayside. Those who thrived had parents who were aware of what was happening in school, an awareness that could only have come from regular communication with their children.

Too many students dropped out – some literally, others figuratively – by simply ceasing to care about school or studies. These had parents who were not aware of even the most fundamental aspects of school, who couldn’t name their child’s teacher and didn’t know the school schedule. The lack of communication between parent and child was palpable.

Some students have gone on to become great contributors to society; others are dependent on, or even abuse, society. The most important determinants I have detected are parent involvement, parent-set boundaries, and realistic parental pride.

Parental involvement demands that you interact with your child and demonstrate interest in his fascination of the day. It means you are available to discuss her successes – or shortcomings. It means not allowing your child to blame every school problem on the teacher or administrator, while at the same time being a strong and dependable advocate for the child if either of the above should prove unfair or negligent.

Parental-set boundaries mean that your child has no excuse for acting in an unacceptable manner, or for failing to complete, or at least attempt, assignments. It implies that you too take responsibility for your child’s actions and comportment.

Hopefully we are all proud of our children, but as we have learned in our adult life, pride in a job, exam, game or relationship is based on effort and accomplishment. Let your child know how proud you are when he tries his best, but don’t build false self-esteem by praising weak effort. If everything I do is awesome, if all my attempts are successes, I have nothing left to prove.

The next time you visit a family restaurant, take a great leap toward being an involved parent. Turn off the phone, sit in a manner that connects rather than separates you and your children, and refuse the colouring paper and crayons.

Tell the wait staff you’re there to have a family conversation.

Ronald G. Macfarlane is retired after serving as a principal with the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal and the English Montreal School Board for more than 25 years. He lives in Châteauguay.

Parents are familiar sights at elementary schools, helping out in classrooms or sitting down at lunch surrounded by dozens of children.

At middle and high schools, however, something changes.

Campuses seem less inviting, helping in classrooms or at lunch can be more intimidating, and parents are less likely to volunteer.

"It's true across the nation," said Adela Trainor, who has had two children graduate from Ventura schools. "At the secondary level, volunteering drops off."

Three years ago, she signed on to the Ventura Unified School District's Family School Community Partnership Committee, which started a volunteer training program during the past year. Officials hope it will help increase involvement at secondary schools.

The effect could be huge, according to the district. Research shows students improve academically and socially and schools are safer when families and other residents are involved on campus.

"Parent involvement is essential all the way throughout students' time in school," said George Petersen, dean of the Graduate School of Education at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

Schools increase access to parents, community members

"Their attendance, homework, their engagement and extracurricular activities — those things seem to increase with parental involvement. Whereas disciplinary issues and issues that would create problems for students seem to decrease when parents are more involved in students' lives in the schools," he said.

There are challenges. Parents are busy, especially with the struggling economy. Schools also must find ways to be more welcoming for parents and other volunteers.

In Ventura Unified's training program, which is led by other volunteers, participants learn about the schools, roles they can fill on campuses, and other topics from campus safety to student confidentiality.

"We're trying to increase access and make our schools more welcoming for parents and our community members," said Superintendent Trudy Tuttle Arriaga.

The district also is trying to offer more volunteer options for working parents, such as chaperoning dances or helping with lunch supervision.

Trainor, who led a training session at Buena High School this summer, volunteered in her children's schools, but, "It wasn't always clear what my role was or what the expectations were," she said.

The training helps build parents' confidence, she said.

It also provides valuable information about safety issues, said Tracy Lopp, who volunteers at her son's school and at the district level.

Tammy Woodford got a notice from the district last summer about training at Buena, where her son is a freshman.

Woodford signed up and now supervises at lunch each week.

"I like to stay in the loop with the schools. The older the kids get and less volunteering opportunities there are, you get kind of out of touch at the school," she said.

The training was helpful. Plus, the school typically pairs volunteers with staff members.

"I think some parents may think that volunteering at the high school level is too scary, but it's not," she said.

Buena Principal Jesus Vaca, who requested the training program, said officials are trying to change the school's culture.

All Ventura schools are trying to be "more accessible and welcoming," said school board member Barbara Fitzgerald. That may mean posting teachers' pictures to help parents connect names with faces, changing signs or adding family resource centers on campus.

There’s been a lot of focus lately on parent involvement in education, and the lack thereof in our urban school districts. While this is not a new problem, it’s one that New Jersey’s inner-city schools must address if they are to foster long-term patterns of success in their students.

Students, especially those at-risk for school and social difficulties, surely benefit from the involvement of mom, dad or close adult relative in their educational lives. Decades of research show that when parents are involved in education, kids achieve better grades, higher graduation rates, improved social skills and more consistent attendance at school, as well as lower levels of involvement with substance abuse and violence. And here’s the kicker: family participation in education has been shown to be twice as predictive of students’ academic success as family socioeconomic status. So it’s not just about poverty. Kids from poor districts can succeed if their parents are involved with school and learning.

What can schools, educators and community partners do to increase the level of parental involvement with schools? Preschool or early grades are great places to start. The pattern of extending learning activities at home, modeling behaviors such as reading and focused study time, is best established early on in the child’s school career.

And what about parental apathy? Let’s be realistic. Few parents start out not caring about their child’s school success. But life often gets in the way, especially for socioeconomically disadvantaged families struggling with basic survival issues. Parents may work long, nontraditional hours, lack English language skills, or harbor a general distrust of school systems and personnel based on their own negative experiences growing up. It’s imperative for schools in urban districts to find ways to overcome these obstacles to parental involvement.

Creative programs can overcome educational engagement barriers faced by parents. It starts by building relationships between educators and families, ensuring that parents feel welcome at their child’s school. Providing communications in the home language of families served, although often inconvenient, is a key way to reach parents with meaningful messages. Involving community partners to help parents access needed resources also goes a long way toward the development of positive relationships and building trust. School should be a place where warm and caring staff look at the needs of the whole child — and that includes family members

Parent education itself is another crucial element for our youngsters’ educational success. Good schools take on parent education as part of the process of educating children, fully understanding its importance. Guiding parents to increase their level of parenting skills and helping them support educational success for their children is doable, with the right approach. Motivating exhausted parents to attend meetings at school is an ongoing challenge — one can be met with innovative programs that provide incentives for attendance. Securing donations or allocating funding to provide refreshments, babysitting, giveaways and fun parent or family activities at children’s schools can bring parents to educational events. It is the responsibility of the school to provide events that are convenient and accessible, as well as culturally and linguistically responsive to the needs of families served.

School administrators should also ask themselves about the extent to which parents have input into school programs and decisions. Actively seeking parental input about decisions affecting children demonstrates respect for parents as the first and most important teachers of their youngsters. This can also be a way to solicit parent volunteers to provide task support and enrich the learning of all students, with parent contributions of individual talents and cultural knowledge.

None of this is easy, but impossible it’s not. There are innovative programs around the state and the nation that feature high levels of parent involvement and corresponding high levels of long-term student success. We can look to these examples to lead best practices in parent involvement for urban school programs. The best schools feature parents as essential partners in the education of their children.