Ruth A. Mueller

Ruth A. Mueller, director of the Leadership Academy, School City of Hammond, in Hammond, Indiana, notes that schools need to enlarge the roles and options of parents and families who wish to be involved in schools. Excerpted from a videotaped interview with Ruth A. Mueller (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1997).

"Research has shown that those parents who are involved with their child, the chances for improvement in student achievement is immense, but at the same time, I don't think we come to the table and say and specifically name what is that, what is parent involvement. From the school's standpoint, they have a perspective. From the parents' standpoint, they think they're helping, but what we don't is really articulate what is the behavior that we really want from each other. Parents want to come to school, but we only want them to come in certain domains, and I think we really have to come together on talking about what it is that we really want parents involvement to look like. As a district leadership, I would like to see more parents in the building, being part of the instructional process, not just popping popcorn or running off papers, but in a tutorial mode and in a modeling of adult behavior that we want all people to be able to do out in the real world. It's the type of service learning that we can give back to our community, but we aren't there yet, you know for whatever reason, we haven't come to the table and really struggled through some of those issues."

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