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Saturday, November 24, 2012

Engaging Parents In School… » Community Schools and Parent Engagement

Engaging Parents In School… » Community Schools and Parent Engagement:


Community Schools and Parent Engagement

I’ve posted often both about my support of community schools and about my concern that they generally don’t encourage parent engagement (see Parent Leadership Is Often “Missing Link” In Community Schools).
Here’s an excerpt from a new study that found the same problem:
This study investigated the effectiveness of a community school’s strategy in influencing the motivators of parental involvement. Through a mixed-method, case-study investigation of a long-established community school in New York City, the study found inconclusive evidence that community school operations positively influenced the motivations of parents to involve themselves in their child’s education. In particular, the site found a low level of parent participation, lack of efficacious mastery experiences and incidents of social persuasion, lack of a sense of collective leadership among parents and staff, and a low level of relational trust between parents and the school organization. Nevertheless, enough positive evidence was collected to suggest that community