Engaging Parents: Improving Student Achievement

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• Welcome!
• Engaging Parents Improving Student Achievement
• Team Maire Bracken (parent),
• Barbara McMorrow(principal)

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Inquiry Dialogue

• What is parent engagement?
• What is a learning community?

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Goals of the Presentation

• Participants will
• Understand the vital role that each of the
  partners play in shaping and sustaining a strong
  Catholic learning community in the province of
  Ontario
• Understand the role of an active, inclusive
  Catholic School Council in creating caring,
  welcoming school communities focused on
  supporting the spiritual and academic potential
  of all students

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Goals of the Presentation

• Participants will
• Identify strategies for enhancing all types of
  parental involvement and the benefits to student
  achievement

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Design for a Whole-School Approach to Improving
Student Achievement
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Parent Engagement Research

• Family participation in education is TWICE as
  predictive of students academic success as
  family socioeconomic status
• 86 of the general public believes that support
  from parents is the most important way to improve
  schools
• School age children spend 70 of their waking
  hours outside of school

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Parent Engagement Research

• Higher grades test scores
• Greater promotion rates
• Higher credit completion
• Lower drop-out rates
• Increased enrollment in post-secondary
• (Dr. Debbie Pushor
  2007)

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School Councils A vehicle for Parent Engagement

• Catholic School Council
• History
• Education Act
• Overview
• Case Studies/Scenarios
• Conducting a successful meeting

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Parent Engagement

• Is clearly linked to learning
• Honours parent and community knowledge
• Enhances a schools ability to be culturally
  responsive
• Enables parents to more fully take their place
  alongside educators in the schooling of their
  children

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Parent Engagement

• Primacy of the parent role is a non-negotiable.
  Educators need to ensure they are giving parents
  the confidence to share their rich faith with
  their children, a faith that is rooted in head,
  heart and hand.
• Thomas Groome 2007

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• It is precisely at a time when such
  collaboration is so urgently needed that it can
  no longer be taken for granted. It must be
  desired, planned, developed, nurtured and
  sustained. Engaging Parents Improving Student
  Achievement presents itself as a tool that will
  help all partners in Catholic education.
• (Bishop
  Durocher 2006)

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SHARED LEADERSHIPThe Sense of the Goose  

•          
• In the fall when you see geese heading south for
  the winter flying along in the "V" formation, you
  might be interested in knowing what science has
  discovered about why they fly that way. It has
  been learned that as each bird flaps its wings,
  it creates an uplift for the bird immediately
  following. By flying in a "V" formation, the
  whole flock adds at least 71 greater flying
  range than if each bird flew on its own.
• PEOPLE WHO ARE PART OF A TEAM AND SHARE A COMMON
  DIRECTION GET WHERE THEY ARE GOING QUICKER AND
  EASIER, BECAUSE THEY ARE TRAVELING ON THE TRUST
  OF ONE ANOTHER.
• Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it
  suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying
  to go through it alone and quickly
• gets back into formation to take advantage of
  the power of the flock.
• IF WE HAVE AS MUCH SENSE AS A GOOSE, WE WILL
  SHARE INFORMATION WITH THOSE WHO ARE HEADED THE
  SAME WAY WE ARE GOING.

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SHARED LEADERSHIP

• When the lead goose gets tired, he rotates back
  in the wing and another goose takes over.
• IT PAYS TO SHARE LEADERSHIP AND TAKE TURNS DOING
  HARD JOBS.
• The geese honk from behind to encourage those up
  front to keep their speed.
• WORDS OF SUPPORT AND INSPIRATION HELP ENERGIZE
  THOSE ON THE FRONT LINE, HELPING THEM TO KEEP
  PACE IN SPITE OF THE DAY-TO-DAY PRESSURES AND
  FATIGUE.
• Finally, when a goose gets sick or is wounded by
  a gunshot and falls out, two geese fall out of
  the formation and follow the injured one down to
  help and protect him. They stay with him until he
  is either able to fly or until he is dead, and
  then they launch out with another formation to
  catch up with their group.
• IF WE HAVE THE SENSE OF A GOOSE, WE WILL STAND
  BY EACH OTHER WHEN THINGS GET ROUGH, and even
  when they're not.

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Thank you