Judson Hixson, senior program consultant at the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, discusses the need for parents to make a meaningful difference through school involvement. Excerpted from the Rural Audio Journal, volume 3, number 3, Families and Schools Together (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1995).
"But I think we have to go beyond kind of the old notion of simply parent involvement where the parents just show up to support something that the school's doing, and I think that to the degree that the school really connects with the parents and the families as a meaningful way as a resource for them as well as a place that they can provide a volunteer or other kinds of services, and those programs can make a difference, but if we just stick with the old model of having parents come in to host a bake sale or supervise after-school activities, I don't think that's really going to get us much farther ahead."
Development and production of this Critical Issue was a collaborative effort of the Appalachia Educational Laboratory and the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.
Date posted: 1996