One of the really important ways that parents can
support their student's ability at home to
continue learning at home is doing some of the things
that we know are so important when they're young.
It's really about creating space for them to focus,
a place where they can go to,
and be quiet,
and be able to know where
their materials are, what is needed.
That's one way. The other is that it's really important
for parents to know the student's teachers.
It can be challenging in high school in
particular because there are more of them.
It depends on the subject,
and by getting to know the teacher,
your student's teacher is so
important because that's how you develop relationships.
Another way that you can
learn or support your child or your students learning at
home is by setting expectations and being very
clear about what your expectations
are about completing homework,
about submitting the homework on time, about attendance,
just about those values and the importance you
place on ensuring that the students are learning,
that if they have questions that they know who to go to
at school or in the community to answer those questions.
It's really about building
that bridge between the learning that happens
at school and the learning that continues at home.
It's always an issue of staying connected with teachers,
getting to know counselors.
These might be new folks
that parents are getting to know,
but also knowing that the school is there
as a resource so
that you can build that bridge between
the school and the learning that happens at home.
One of the things that's really important to think about,
especially for high school students
that are getting ready or that are transitioning,
either in the earlier part of
high school or even the later part of high school is,
if you don't hear from
teachers that it's important that you retell.
That is a critically important function of
establishing the school-home partnership
is to do a couple of things.
One, call the school
and request to get to know the counselor.
The second is ask for
the schedule that your student has;
so what classes is my student taking?
What are the names of the teachers?
If you haven't heard from the school or a teacher,
make the first move,
retell, make a phone call.
Oftentimes, the school has
a website or has a Facebook page.
Those are other venues to reach out.
Any and all of these venues can
really just enhance your ability to
support and connect with the school and also,
especially if you feel more comfortable using a phone,
then calling the school.
I am being persistent to make sure you get
connected to someone or
following up if you have a message.
But it's that effort
of connecting and ensuring that you're able
to reach a person that can
really make those connections for you and your child.
One of the ways in which families
can really support their students learning,
even if they themselves are not fluent in English,
is to encourage language acquisition, curiosity,
talking with your student about what you do know,
and the culture,
and the values,
and the traditions, reading books,
sharing with them stories.
This is about really connecting
and increasing vocabulary and
ensuring that there's a language-rich environment
in your home language.
Especially in high school,
being socially connected is really important and that
happens in a way
that you feel most comfortable connecting with them.
In this transition, in high-school,
socialized and isolation can really
play a role in the academic performance of your student,
and so asking questions like, how are you?
How are you feeling?
How was your day today?
Really prodding to have
more than monosyllabic responses
is going to be really important,
and that often happens
in the language that the parent feels most comfortable.
But it's really about
connecting socially and emotionally,
enriching the student's experience by
sharing the parent's own experiences
in the language that feels comfortable,
that really reinforces a student's identity,
that really supports language development.
I have to say that asking
those open-ended questions like how, why, where,
those kinds of questions really
enable a conversation to continue,
and really enrich the connection
between parents and students,
which is how in
the language that you feel comfortable with,
really continue to support
the student's ability to grow and share
concerns and apprehensions as well as
successes and doubts and achievements.
It's that connection that needs to be tended to,
as well as the academic achievements
and the academic concerns.
High schools can be very intimidating environments.
There are a lot of
caring adults and a lot of specialized talents.
Finding the right resource or the right connection,
depending on what the needs are,
for instance, if there
are questions or concerns about attendance,
there are attendance clerks typically in the main office.
So knowing how attendance is taken,
if it's at every period,
if there's an absence, what does that mean?
Knowing what is a counselor and what role does
the counselor play in relationship
to creating class schedules,
ensuring that your student is making progress and being
placed in the right classes
year after year, semester after semester.
There are school psychologist
that you can reach out to
if you have concerns about social,
emotional needs of your students or if you know
your son or your daughter is struggling in some way.
There's also a lot of
support and you can reach out to the principal if
there are other issues that you may not
know about or other resources that you may not know.
Reaching out to the principal is very important.
In addition to that,
is obviously reaching out to teachers,
to your student's teachers,
so that you are better able to know
what the expectations of those teachers are,
how best to communicate with them.
But the bottom line is that it's really
important that that link in
that conversation begin and continue,
and that by picking up the phone,
by sending an email,
by following your school on Facebook,
if that's a more preferred way.
This will help you make those connections between
what's happening at school
and what's happening with your student.
In high school, I think in particular,
starting to think about
high school graduation and beyond,
starts in 9th grade.
So it's never too early to start
making those connections with the staff at
the school because there will be more of them
and they will have much more specialized knowledge
about particular issues that are important
or that you might face throughout the high school tenure.
Students that are special needs
or that are English language learners,
or who are learning English as a second language,
are entitled to be provided accommodations and supports.
In order to ensure that your student
is receiving those supports and those accommodations,
it's so important that you connect with the principal.
It's very important that you connect and reach out
and talk to the school psychologist.
It's very important that you reach
out and connect with the school nurse.
Especially for students that have special needs,
either special education needs or other medical needs,
you will have an additional set of
staff and supporters that
will ensure that your student can succeed,
but it is additional.
These typically aren't solely the teachers.
They tend to be additional supports.
For students with special needs,
oftentimes, nurses are involved,
school psychologists are involved.
Knowing that there is a process by which you
can request additional supports and accommodations,
it starts with a principal,
a teacher, school psychologist, nurse,
and then there's a process by which that support is
provided with students who
are learning English as a second language,
where English is a second language.
In addition, connecting with the teacher
directly so that you ensure that students
are provided the support to learn English as
a language in addition to actually learning content.
You absolutely can ask to talk with a content teacher,
so your math teacher,
your science teacher, and the accommodations and
supports so that your student is
learning math and science,
music, whatever the courses are.
In addition, that there are strategies in place for
your student to learn how to speak English.
That's an added component,
and that is something that you as
a parent can and need to be very specific about,
about what additional supports or
adaptations are being provided to your student to
ensure that they are both learning
English and that they are learning content.
Specifically, content that is specific to their grade,
and that is aligned with their ability to
meet high school graduation requirements that get them
ready post high school
into higher ed opportunities or career opportunities.
But that is a critically important aspect,
is that both things are
happening and both types of supports are happening.
One very important support that's
available for students that parents
can ask about and reach out to are
community based organizations that
provide tutoring services,
that provide enriching experiences
that can support the student's ability
to develop a skill or a talent.
These are all resources that might not
live within the school,
but are actually part of the community.
Oftentimes it's also reaching
out to the school and partnership
with some of community based organizations
the schools have, these additional supports.
But it could be running clubs,
it could be chess clubs,
it could be science clubs.
These are all the kinds of resources and
supports that might be available
either through the school and/
or are part of the community in which the school is
situated and therefore parents
absolutely can reach out either directly to
the community based organization and
through reaching out to
the schools and asking for those types of supports.
Communication is always important.
Communication is both ways
as is parents reaching out and making the first move.
Similarly, there's information
that gets sent to families,
to parents in multiple ways.
Absolutely maintaining
an accurate phone number is critical.
There typically are phone calls
that go out from the principal from teachers,
making sure that the school has
the most accurate phone number is really important,
connecting via email and so
the school often will send out emails,
giving updates, providing information.
That's another way in which
the school might be reaching out.
The third is around social media.
Now the nature in
which we live now is that there
is a lot of big social media presences
including in schools and so
making sure that you're following
the Facebook page of your school or
any other social media where they
might be sharing information,
posting information to stay involved.
Then finally, one other way to receive information
is most districts have what is called the parent portal.
That parent portal is a way in which
the district and the school can communicate with
the parent and what
the parent portal provides is a way for information to
be consolidated for families or for parents to
reach out and get information.
Be able to see for instance, their student's schedule,
to be able to see the classes that they're taking,
grades, progress report.
These are all things that typically live in
a student portal and parents
have access to that information.
It might be one more app to look at.
However, that is a place where data
and information about how your student is
doing and the grades and
test scores and that type
of information can also be shared.