“Our main focus at Bush Elementary School is to have family engagement rather than just involvement,” said Bush Elementary School fourth grade teacher and Family & Community Engagement team member, Amy Vezina. “We have great families at Bush School and have always had good involvement in activities like Family Movie Night and Halloween Fun Fair, but now we want our families to have an opportunity to be truly engaged with their child’s learning. Parents have learning goals and dreams for their children, but we, as educators, haven’t always provided tangible ways to allow parents to be engaged in reaching those goals and dreams. It is our responsibility to break down important information, such as student data or how to infuse literacy into their lives, into meaningful information that will help families understand how to help their children succeed in school.”

Mrs. Vezina and Bush Elementary School are part of a district initiative at Jamestown Public Schools to shift from the traditional way of family and community involvement to actively engaging families in their children’s academic success. This is a primary goal in JPS’ Strategic Plan. Goal 3 states, “Improve communications and deepen engagement for both families and the broader community.” As part of this goal, the JPS Board of Education recently adopted a district Family and Community Engagement Plan. In addition, all School Improvement Plans have a section that is focused on improving family and community engagement.

“The Family and Community Engagement plan represents the combined talents of district stakeholders who dedicated themselves to developing a responsive, well-informed plan that will evolve with the district’s ongoing family and community engagement priorities,” said Julie Poppleton, Coordinator of Extended Learning, Family & Community Engagement.

An essential element of family engagement is the understanding that parents are partners with the school in regards to their child’s learning. At Lincoln Elementary School for example, the UPK team, which includes a Jamestown Community Learning Council Family Educator, has traditionally invited parents into the classroom to see what their children are learning. They have held once a month activities such as a game day that the teachers planned.

“Since the FaCE (Family and Community Engagement) workshops this summer, we have realized that we need to plan our monthly activities with the help of parents,” said Lincoln UPK teacher and FaCE Committee member, Betsy Homan. “We need to ask the parents what they would like to see and learn more about regarding their child’s education, not our vision of what they would like to see. We need to be partners with our parents so that they can be more involved in their child’s academic success. It is a different approach that is definitely more learning focused. We have provided learning experiences in the past but we have not always been explicit about what the goals are or given parents the tools they need to help with their child’s education.”

At Jamestown High School, one of the focus areas of their FaCE Committee is to increase the percentage of families and students who access the password-protected Parent Portal. The Parent Portal, which is the district’s on-line link that shows student assignments, grades, teacher comments and teacher emails, is an easy way for parents to know what is going on in their child’s school day and to communicate with teachers directly. The school also recently held a re-vamped Open House called, “Raider Pride Family Night.”

“Obviously, having families and teachers all on-board with what we are trying to achieve at Jamestown High School gives so much more support to the students. It is also always good to hear from a parent’s perspective what they think their child needs to succeed in school,” said JHS teacher and FaCE committee member, Steve Propheter. “Many times parents and families just don’t know all the programs, opportunities and the many support systems available to JHS students and parents from our local community. Two-way, open communication between families and Jamestown High School helps us to better help our students.”

Other Jamestown Schools are also planning parent engagement activities for the upcoming school year. Love Elementary School’s FacE Team’s focus is on increasing parents’ literacy knowledge, so they can help their child’s literacy skills increase over the school year. They plan to hold literacy workshops at every grade level during the October early dismissal day. Teachers will model read-aloud strategies that parents can practice at home, and provide in-class and take-home activities. Both Love and Fletcher Elementary School FaCE teams are encouraging their teachers to use the “Remind” app to foster direct communication with parents, answer questions and send information on families’ cell phones or tablets.

Jefferson Middle School’s recent Open House featured interactive “passports,” which challenged families to answer a literacy-related question in each subject area. The school also conducted a brief survey to better understand parents’ needs. All of Jefferson Middle School’s family and community engagement activities or events will focus on partnering with parents to support learning and increase student achievement.

Washington Middle School is also revamping its open house.

“The usual Open House has parents walking around with their children and meeting teachers. This year, we are changing it in order to have more meaningful, academically-focused interactions with parents,” said Washington Middle School teacher and FaCE committee member, Jen Cronin. “They will visit classrooms, get to know teachers, and learn ways to assist their children with literacy at home. Our primary goal this year is to build relationships with families and welcome them into our school. We are also looking forward to inviting parents to ‘Take Your Parent to School Day’ in December. We really encourage parents to visit their child’s school as much as they can this year!”