Janith Jordan

Janith Jordan, Vice President of Audrey Cohen College in New York City, describes how the Audrey Cohen College System of Education uses parent-purpose packs to increase communication between schools and families. Excerpted from an interview with Janith Jordan (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1998).

"We strongly encourage parents' involvement, and we're in the process ourselves now of putting together what we call Parent Purpose Packs, which parents will get every semester that will really help them understand what their children are engaged in and give them activities they can do together-- homework assignments, going out and measuring the neighborhood, to do things of that type so that they really become engaged in this process of constructive action and purpose, and that's why we're doing the Parent Pack. We also find that parents don't want to be left behind. As their children go out into that larger world and learn about that larger world, they may be zooming ahead and learning things that perhaps the parents have not yet learned. The opportunity to move along with their children we think is an important effort, so that we don't have any gap between children moving forward and parents moving forward in some key areas."

This Critical Issue was researched and written by Judith G. Caplan, director of Early Childhood and Family Education at North Central Regional Educational Laboratory in Oak Brook, Illinois.

Date posted: 1998