Wake County Schools Communicate with Families
 Wake County PTA Council President Sarah Martin talks with Swift Creek Assistant Principal Bob Umstead and Principal Jim Argent in front of school's PTA bulletin board. |
This is the second in a series of reports on the six standards of family involvement in Wake Board Policy 2541
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Listen to Swift Creek's Jim Argent Share your school's best practices for communicating with families 28 minute mp3 file |
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4-page Acrobat file |
January 20, 2009 – Communication is important for families and schools to build a partnership that supports students in achieving their best.
To try and further foster this communication, the Wake County School Board is embracing standards of the National PTA. The PTA’s six standards for judging effective family-school partnerships are now included in Board Policy 2541.
Sarah Martin, the Wake County PTA Council President, is visiting schools to talk with principals about the standards. Martin visited with Principal Jim Argent and Assistant Principal Bob Umstead of Swift Creek Elementary, to talk about Standard 2: Communicating effectively - Families and school staff engage in regular, meaningful communication about student learning.
“I think its important for families to let the school know what’s going on that might affect their child’s academic success,” said Martin. “At times, it’s important that the school staff and family have a dialogue, not just information sharing, but a true dialogue about how they can work on issues to help the student move forward academically and socially.”
Jim Argent of Swift Creek Elementary says hsi school has worked at informing and communicating with parents.
“We look at communication on a continuum,” said Argent. “There are times when we just need to inform parents of things. I think it’s very important that we get information to parents in multiple venues.”
The school has a user-friendly website designed by its media specialists. The assistant principal uses the school messenger phone system to share information with grade level groups or all families. The school’s PTA publishes a newsletter twice a month, sharing information from staff.
“There are times when we need to be gathering input from people and making decisions,” said Argent. “There are also times when we need to be letting other people, stakeholders, make decisions.”
Argent has used education summits, patterned on meetings held by Superintendent Del Burns to gather input and share decision making.
The school is holding three parent summits this school year. The meetings have evolved from presentations to discussions.
“We gathered a lot of information from our parents that we put into our school improvement plan,” said Argent. “I think that was very powerful. Our parents, our community stakeholders, were making decisions to help make our school better.”
Argent said the next summit will provide parents information on the reading End-of-Grade testing and seek parent input on steps that can be taken to help students do better.
Argent says the school follows best practices when it comes to sharing grades with parents.
Interim reports are sent home to every student for the first and third quarters. Teachers have conferences with every family when first quarter report cards are sent home. Interim reports are sent to families where students are below benchmark or have dropped a level for the second and fourth quarter.
“We do not want to have any surprises for parents,” said Argent. “We want to have two-way communication on what we can do as a team to best meet the student’s needs.”
Argent said the school seeks to be transparent, keeping parents informed.
“Be open. Be honest,” said Argent. “99 percent of the problems that occur in any organization, a school system included, can be headed off with good communication. People may not agree with a decision, but they will buy in and live with the decision if they know the ‘why’ behind it.”
The Wake County PTA Council leader says the steps being taken at Swift Creek Elementary are the types of communication that help families and schools work together.
“If the family will stay in communication with the school, they’ll know what’s going on,” said Martin. “On the flip side, if the school will stay in communication with the parents, they’ll be able to better serve the student. It’s a two-way street. Both are ultimately working to support the student.”
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