One of the big obstacles schools face is community and parental involvement.  Sometimes it is easy–drive by your local high school on a Friday night.  Depending on where you live, you may see the entire town (or close to it) at the school.  There is excitement in the air and everyone is pumped up about your school.  This is too easy!  However, we know why the people are there.

Sometimes the crowd gathers in the school auditorium.  Once again there is excitement in the air and everyone is there to see the hard work of the students.  Hours and hours have been spent rehearsing for the gathering.  The work has been done and the playbills are ready for distribution.  Wow, it is really easy to get families in our schools!

There are many examples where we are successful at bringing the community and families into our schools.  However, the previous examples deal with athletics and the arts.  These are important functions of schools and are worthy programs.  Once the crowd leaves and the staff is ready to head home their thoughts turn to the next evening.  Science Night!  Experiments are planned and there is even a guest speaker from the prestigious university.  The crowd should be huge!

The following evening rolls around and Science/Math/Literacy Night is set to begin. The anticipated reality then sets in.  There are only a handful of families in attendance.  The same can be seen at School Improvement Council meetings, PTA meetings, Curriculum Nights and the list continues.  Apparently, we have the ability to get families in our school (see first two examples) but it is the rare exception rather than the norm.  How can we increase attendance at ALL of our school events?

Publicize, Publicize, Publicize

If you are having an event at your school, you need to work extra hard in getting the word out.  Simply putting it in a newsletter and on the school marquee is not enough.  Advertise in the local paper. Post it on your school blog (you have one, right?).  Most importantly, reach out to your community!  Go to the places your community goes.  Post a flyer at the local grocery store.  The local restaurants often have community message boards.  What about the dry cleaners?  Everyone has to get their hair done or cut.  I am sure the salon would allow you to post your information.  Local churches?  Gas stations?

Truly Welcome Them In

Many people are intimidated by schools.  We are not always the most welcoming places.  We need to work to change that perception.  If the only time a parent hears from us is when their child is in trouble, why would they want to visit us?  Connect with the community and families often.  We must spread our good news because if we do not, who will?  And of course, a free meal never hurts!

What about the parents who work during the evening?  If a parent works second shift, are we catering to their needs?  If everything is planned for after school, when can they participate?  I do not think we are going to plan anything that starts at midnight, so we need to think of something else.  Why not run the program twice, with the first one mid-morning?  This would only work for certain events, but it is a start.

Engage Them

We work hard to create programs and courses that will engage our students.  We need to focus this same energy on our efforts to bring the community to our schools.  If we are fortunate to get them in the door, we better show them an exciting time!  Some events are more inclined to engage the audience, but we must make every effort to engage them no matter the reason for their visit.  We expect the same from all of our teachers, regardless of the course they teach.

Feedback

Sometimes what we think may be important and exciting does not resonate with our community or families.  We need to know what they think.  Exit slips are an easy way to gather this data.  Once they are there, find out what they liked.  We need to focus on our customers.  This also needs to be done before events are planed as well.  Surveys are an easy way to gauge interest.  These can be sent home with all of the forms that need to be filled out at the beginning of the year.

We all know how challenging it is to get genuine community/family involvement at our schools.  However, it can be done.  We need to reach out to our families.   We can no longer (could we really ever?) expect the families to show up simply because we plan something.  We need to make sure our schools are inviting places.  We need to go the extra mile in getting the word out to the community.  Just as we expect from our teachers, we need to engage them once they arrive.  Is it easy?  Of course not.  Is it worth the effort?  I think we all know the answer to that question.