Forging Family Ties

Increasing parent involvement means overcoming barriers that are both real and perceived.

By Rhonda Barton

HILLSBORO, Oregon—Gilt-framed portraits of seven children smile down from the wall above the velvet love seat in Maria Esther Palomares’s modest but spotless living room. They’re the reason that Palomares and her husband Marcelino Alejandro left their native Guadalajara to plant roots in a suburb west of Portland. “We came to find a better life,” says Palomares in rapid-fire Spanish. “It is difficult to study in Mexico. Here, the government helps out more.”

Palomares is determined that her children—and others like them—will flourish in the Hillsboro School District. Even though she speaks little English, Palomares is as involved in the education system as any stereotypical soccer mom. Dashing from one classroom or meeting to the next, she reads Spanish stories to children in the elementary school, volunteers at PTA gatherings, chaperones field trips, and serves on both the district’s parent advisory and strategic planning committees. Despite putting in 10-hour days as an agricultural worker, Marcelino also volunteers his evenings.

Their hard work hasn’t gone unrewarded. Palomares reports that all of her children are getting good grades and doing well in school. Her oldest daughter, Erica, garnered five scholarships and enrolled in Portland Community College—the first family member to attend college. Seventeen-year-old Yesenia, a high school junior, plans to go to nursing school and even five-year-old Esmeralda, the youngest in the family, confidently says she wants to be a doctor when she grows up.

What NCLB Says

It’s not surprising that Maria and Marcelino’s children are on track to fulfilling their parents’ dreams for them. Thirty years of research confirms that when parents are involved, students do better in school. In a comprehensive review of 51 high-quality studies, Anne T. Henderson and Karen L. Mapp found that—regardless of family income and background—students with involved parents are more likely to earn higher grades, enroll in higher level programs, attend school regularly, have better social skills, show improved behavior, graduate, and go on to postsecondary education.

The No Child Left Behind Act—particularly in Titles I and III—has expanded schools’ obligations to inform parents and reach out to families who’ve traditionally been underrepresented in school activities and decisionmaking. For example, schools that receive Title III funding must establish effective ways to inform parents of Limited English Proficient students how they can be involved in their children’s education and actively help their children learn English and meet high academic standards. Under NCLB, all parents have the right to be informed of the content and quality of their children’s education; the right and responsibility to participate in decisions and learning at the school; and the right to make educational choices in the best interests of their children.

Yet, despite those mandates and the research findings, many schools still struggle to actively engage high numbers of parents and other family members. And, that fact is even truer when it comes to families who speak limited English. A “Running Start”

A statewide survey by Oregon’s Chalkboard Project found that many traditionally underrepresented families tend to spend more nights assisting their child with homework than their higher income Anglo counterparts. At the same time, they are less likely to volunteer at their child’s school because of barriers that are both perceived and real. Those barriers can range from language to culture to economics.

“Involvement creates a bridge between the school and the home, allows parents to spot problems or opportunities early, and improves communication between the important adults in a child’s life. But, minority and low-income families are telling us they often don’t feel welcome in school hallways and classrooms,” says Chalkboard President Sue Hildick.

Chalkboard, which is funded by five local foundations, has responded with a two-tiered effort called “Running Start.” The first part is a staff training kit with tools and resources to conduct all-day workshops or shorter one-hour seminars with teachers, administrators, staff, and parent leaders. According to Chalkboard, “the aim is to arm every adult in the school—from teachers and playground monitors to school crossing guards and custodial staff—with a deeper understanding of the barriers to parent engagement and how to overcome them.”

The second part of the project is aimed at parents. It offers sample Oregon test questions and information on topics such as how to read report cards and how education works in the United States. “These seem basic,” admits Project Director Stefani Willis, “but for newly arrived parents, it’s difficult to navigate the system.” The materials, translated into Spanish, and the training toolkit are available on Chalkboard’s Web site (www.chalkboardproject.org). While much of the information is available in bits and pieces in other places, Chalkboard leaders believe organizing it on one site will make it easier to access.

Chalkboard is also partnering with the Oregon Department of Education to launch a policy template that ensures all schools reach out to parents in a unified, thoughtful way. The two groups hope the template will be approved by the Board of Education in time for statewide implementation in the 2006–2007 school year.

A Welcoming District

Schools in and out of the state only have to look as far as Hillsboro to find a model for successful family engagement. Saideh Haghighi, a Teacher on Special Assignment, puts in 12 hours a day to make sure that parents like Maria Palomares feel welcome throughout the district.

Haghighi, whose heritage is a mix of Puerto Rican and Iranian, was working in an after-school tutoring program when she realized that parents of her ELL students rarely showed up for conferences. “I started visiting them at home and decided to hold meetings at the community centers in apartment complexes, instead of at school,” she recalls. She was joined by a couple of other teachers and, as word spread of their outreach efforts, the National Education Association offered them a two-year, $18,000 grant to create a parent involvement program.

Today, Haghighi provides support to all 32 schools in the district, which has a Hispanic enrollment of almost 28 percent. A typical day starts with a school visit at 7:30 a.m. and stretches long into the night with parent meetings. In between, she translates at conferences and fields an endless stream of requests from parents and school officials. “My focus is on the Hispanic community,” she says, “but I’ll never say no to helping in ESL efforts with other minority groups.”

Next year, she’ll have two additional community outreach workers to help target the district’s seven elementary schools with a 50 percent or greater Hispanic population. Funding for the positions—“always an issue,” concedes Haghighi—will come from a variety of sources, including title grants. But, the increasing need for such outreach is clear given Hillsboro’s demographics: The number of Hispanic students in the district grew almost 154 percent from 1994 to 2004, compared to a .07 percent increase in the white student population.

Saideh Haghighi—whose first name means “good luck” in Farsi—believes Hillsboro is unique in its commitment to including Hispanic parents at all levels of decisionmaking. Five such parents serve on the district’s strategic planning committee, including three who don’t speak English. Hispanic parents also have a say in choosing new curriculum for board approval. And, they turn out by the hundreds for monthly meetings on topics they’ve chosen themselves.

One of the most successful functions was a Saturday college fair, held at one of the district’s high schools. Haghighi invited representatives from a half-dozen local colleges and universities, who were ready and able to admit students on the spot. “We had a table with information on 19 scholarships and volunteers to help parents fill out their FAFSA (financial aid) forms. Thirty-four students showed up and all were accepted or took home offers to review with their families!”

When it comes time for Yesenia Palomares-Alejandro to head for college, she’ll know that her parents played a huge role in paving the way. “They’ve always told me you don’t have to work, just concentrate on your studies,” she says. “It makes me proud that they’ve been so involved and supported us.”

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