Promoting Parental Involvement

By Eddie L. Kirby

I will focus on engaging more parents in their child's education. The first--and best--teacher is always the student's parent. It is a universally accepted fact that students with parents actively involved in their child's education perform better.

I will work tirelessly with local parent organizations to help them outreach to other parents in their school. I will also work to eliminate bureaucratic barriers that keep many parents from participating in their child's education.

The district needs a new level of engagement with parents that focuses on making it easier for the parents to be an active and integral part of their child's success.

In order to achieve these goals, I plan to establish a concrete relationship between our district, and parent organizations. This would include the district aiding in the promotion of parent organizations, and direct correspondences to individual parents on the behalf of the district and parent organization.

Further, I would insure that teachers make the necessary phone calls to parents if the student is not performing well, which would include communication on how the parents and teacher can work together to pressure the student to work harder and improve their education.

Lastly, with this increased involvement of district parents and our established channel of communication, I will bring parents into the decision making of the district, and increase the pool of ideas when making district education policy.