Supporting our Secondary Students

         A guardian engaging with her students.      

Parental involvement is a necessary piece to student, teacher, and school support. According to Edutopia, "studies show that with more family engagement: There is greater student achievement. Student attendance is higher. Graduation rates are higher. Alcohol abuse is lower. Students from diverse backgrounds and who are farthest behind benefit" (2016). The benefits to engaged parents and families are better outcomes for students and their academic endeavors. Many people have ideas for how to invest in secondary students and their families. Taking school information into spaces where families already congregate to coordinate meeting times such as churches, community centers, and possibly workplaces is convenient and efficient for meeting or distributing information (Edutopia 2016). 

In my experience, as an intrinsically motivated student, my parents allowed me to practice independence and rarely got involved with my own academic assignments. However, my parents have always been involved in the general understanding of my classes and utilized me as to how they gained their knowledge. Every student is different and parental support will need to look different for each student. As an educator, I will commit to creating central hubs where parents can gravitate to (such as a blog, website, email update, or app) to gain information about what we are doing in class and what they could ask their students about what they have been learning or working on. I also plan to create opportunities for students to be more engaged with their own families or support systems within the classroom so everything feels connected and streamlined. Understanding that students will have various home dynamics and levels of support is also important and will need to reflect the creative way I can cater to all families.