PIC Commentary 1 of 2

The Halton DSB is holding it’s third Parent Involment Committee Meeting this Thursday, November 30, 2006 at 7:00 PM in the Banquet Hall at the Milton Sports Centre on Derry Road.

The agenda has been set as follows:

• Review of Key Features of the Parent Involvement in Education Policy
• Facilitated Discussion: Who should be a member of the Regional PIC?
• How should these individuals be selected?
• Brainstorm: Ideas for Terms of Reference for the Regional PIC

Susan Roberston, past President of the Ontario Federation of Home & School Associations, lends the following insights into Parent Engagement and Parent Involvement Committees:

Membership: a representative chosen by the Home and School Council should be there as a full voting member of the PIC to represent a body of involved parents in schools across the board – that rep can liaise with the H&SA members as well as offer their input. I also wonder if there has been any discussion about each Home and School Association also having a voice at the PIC since the PIC’s mandate is to monitor all parent involvement, not just that happening under the umbrella of the school council.

Under the first item, discussion of the new Parent Engagement Policy (Board’s or Province’s?), it should be made clear at this meeting that all parent initiated activities are to be included under the guidelines for board and provincial funding. The policy says that all funded projects must be approved by a motion of the school council, but school councils have the responsibility to seek out and support activities recommended and organized by other community and school parent groups other than the school councils. The PIC should also be monitoring all parent activities as part of its mandate to report on parent involvement, not just those organized by school councils. I think they also need to look at what activities actually are bringing in parents in support of public education. Are the most effective programs ones that parents need to apply for funds for or are they simpler than that? School based activities that don’t require funding applications form an important component of parent engagement already, and these shouldn’t now be considered “chopped liver” because they don’t require funding applications. I am thinking of a host of community building activities that make supporters for public schools out of the schools’ communities – fun fairs, information nights, family math and literacy nights, kindergarten parent nights, and all the times that parents are made to feel part of their school community. These softer items often have a bigger impact than asking people to be involved in improving student achievement in the school or discussing EQAO results for the school.

If the PIC wants to have a big impact on increasing parent engagement, it could find ways to help the parents already engaged reach out to parents not already there – especially in helping them find ways for these uninvolved parents to support their own child’s learning. Having more parents attend meetings probably is a worthwhile goal, but some real expertise in learning what parents need to know to help their students do better and then helping all parents already active in schools get these messages out there in their own communities would be wonderful. Most of us don’t know how to reach out to the parents who aren’t coming in the door, and we aren’t even sure what those parents most need to understand to improve their children’s results. The PIC could really help schools if this kind of information could be researched and then disseminated there.

I am seeing a lot of attention to “what projects can be funded” instead of “what projects actually work to help parents help their kids”.

 Sue