2013 Statewide Parental Involvement Conference Red Zone Strategy: Secondary Parent Engagement

1. 2013 Statewide Parental Involvement Conference Red Zone Strategy: Secondary Parent Engagement

2. What changes in secondary school? • KIDS CHANGE • Middle school students’ grades tend to drop. While data collection varies, some school districts report retention rates as high as 12% to 19% in sixth and seventh grades. • For whatever reasons, middle school students are at risk of disconnecting from school – a practice that puts them at risk of becoming a high school dropout. • Parents who do not understand their adolescent’s developmental stages become scared, frustrated, angry and ineffectual. • Parents may address their frustration by becoming more controlling and if that does not work, they may throw up their hands and just hope everything turns out okay.

3. SECONDARY SCHOOLS ARE DIFFERENT • Secondary schools are larger, more diverse and more bureaucratic than the elementary schools and parents feel they are not welcome there. • The opportunities for involvement are different than they were in elementary school. There are not as many opportunities for parents to actually be in their students’ classroom. • Secondary school teachers have many more parents than elementary teachers have.

4. WHAT DOES NOT CHANGE? • Research proves that parental involvement still increases learning in secondary school, but the kind of parental involvement that worked in elementary school does not in middle school and high school. • Middle School and high school children NEED parents, but they need parents who understand how they are changing. • Teachers really NEED parents to create a strong supportive environment at home that will support the work they do in class.

5. Nancy Hill Research: • Parental Involvement in Middle School: A Meta-Analytic Assessment of the Strategies That Promote Achievement,” Nancy E. Hill, PhD. Graduate School of Education Harvard University, and Diana F. Tyson, PhD. Duke University, Developmental Psychology, Vol. 45. No. 3. • Nancy Hill identifies and defines Academic Socialization

6. ACADEMIC SOCIALIZATION • 1. Parents communicate their expectations for academic achievement. • 2. Parents communicate that they value education. • 3. Parents foster learning by expressing educational and occupational expectations. • 4. Parents discuss learning startegies.

7. 5. Parents make plans for the future. • 6. Parents link materials discussed in school and the students’ interests and goals. • 7. Students get better at logical and analytical thinking, problem solving, planning and decision making. • 8. Adolescents’ goals, beliefs, and motivations are internalized and begin to shape performance and course selection. • 9.Parents and schools give adolescents activities that develop their autonomy, independence and cognitive abilities.

8. What are the essential messages that we must convey to parents? • 1. Teenagers need parents as much as they needed them when they were young. • 2. Parents have more influence on the outcome of their children’s adult lives than anyone else. • 3. Parents are responsible for their secondary students’ attendance.

9. 4. Teenagers have two conflicting needs: one is the need to separate from their parents and the other is the need to stay close to their parents. • 5. Parents role in homework changes in secondary school. • 6. Parents need to show their children that they value education. • 7. It is important that parents consistently connect the work that students do in school each day with their future.

10. 8. Parents need to talk to their children about their learning styles and accommodate them. • 9. Reading is the single most important skill that students will need throughout their lives. • 10. Teenagers’ brains will not be fully developed until they are 24 or 25.

11. Across all ethnicities parents can • Support a home atmosphere that supports learning and academic achievement • Connect school work with future goals • Guide adolescents’ move into independence and autonomy • Guide learning behaviors and styles • Value education

12. Title I Statewide School Support and Family and Community Engagement Initiative • Communication is: • Frequent • Personal • Innovative

13. Communication will • Provide grade level parent information and training about the curriculum and assessments. • Provide training and resources to parents about expectations regarding homework and practical tips about homework time and homework study areas.

14. RESEARCH BASE • Center on Education Policy “What Roles Do Parent Involvement, Family Background, and Culture Play in Student Motivation? George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development, 2012. • Chapman, Sandra Bond, Ph.D. Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas at Dallas, Strategic Memory Advanced Reasoning Trainings • James J. Heckman, Schools, Skills, and Synapses, Fall 2008, Economic Inquiry, 289-324. • Parental Involvement and Academic Success, Jeynes, W.H. Routledge, New York, 2011. • Parental Involvement in Middle School: A Meta-Analytic Assessment of the Strategies That Promote Achievement,” Nancy E. Hill, PhD. Graduate School of Education Harvard University, and Diana F. Tyson, PhD. Duke University, Developmental Psychology, Vol. 45. No. 3. • Parenting a Middle Schooler: How to Stay Involved, Semeria, Joan, www.education.com/print/parental-involvement • Survey Monkey Parent Engagement Assessment created in collaboration with Graduate School of Education Harvard University • Truancy: How Parents and Teachers Contribute, The School Counselor, March 1983, Little, Linda F., and Thompson, Rock. • American Psychological Association: Middle School Malaise, www.apa.org/helpcenter/middle-school.aspx

15. Phone 214-914-0839 drlucylong@gmail.com