The power of parent participation
Dr. Joyce Epstein, who heads the National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University, created the gold standard for parent involvement programs – a comprehensive set of practices that encourage good parenting, strong home-school communication, volunteer opportunities, support for learning at home, a parent voice in school decision making, and community collaboration.
Last night’s parent forum at DePaul really made that package come to life.
On the panel were (right to left in photo) Monica Espinoza and Joanna Brown from Logan Square Neighborhood Association, Lynn Morton from Community Organizing and Family Issues, yours truly, Wendy Kattan from Raise Your Hand, and Latrice Watkins, LSC chair of Piccolo Elementary, who led the Occupy Piccolo protest earlier this year (Cecile Carrol from Blocks Together arrived after this pic was taken).
Together, we represented that full package of parent involvement activity, and, as I pointed out to the audience of about 100 teachers and students studying to be teachers, you get the whole package with parents. We want to