Intensification of School-Home-

Community Partnerships
in the Midst of Covid-19 Pandemic
As the Covid-19 Pandemic spread rapidly across the globe, many
schools struggled to react both quickly and adequately. Schools were
one of the most important societal institutions to be affected by the
Pandemic. However, most school leaders have little to no training in
crisis leaderships, nor have they dealt with a crisis of this scale and this
scope for this long pandemic situation.
Most schools systems were caught flatfooted, despite the fact
that many locations had several months warning. School boards and
administrators dithered what to do. Government support for schools
and families was ambiguous. Uncertainly reigned everywhere. The
global pandemic spread rapidly and most schools struggled to react
both quickly and adequately.
By now, it is evident that the global pandemic has created an
unprecedented challenge for school leaders. Although principals and
superintendents are used to handling smaller crises such as fights in the
hallway, a leaky boiler, irate parents, disagreements over budgetary
choices.
In addition to “ how much” students learn, a major concern is
“ how many “ students remain engaged with remote learning. Without
the structuring school routine and frequent contact and support from
teachers and peers, students on the path of dropout can get further
detached. Moreover, teachers can find it more difficult to identify and
act on the warning signs. Several interventions in low and middle
income countries have cocluded structured pedagogy programmers-
where educators receive detailed lesson guides targeted materials for
students and teachers.

The Home-School Team: An Emphasis on Parent

Family-school-community partnerships are a shared responsibility and
reciprocal process whereby schools and other community agencies and
organizations engage families in meaningful and culturally appropriate
ways, and families take initiative to actively supporting their children’s
development and learning. Schools and community organizations also
make efforts to listen to parents, support them, and ensure that they have
the tools to be active partners in their children’s school experience.

Partnerships are essential for helping students achieve at their maximum

potential and, while parent and community involvement has always been a
cornerstone of public schools, greater recognition and support of the importance
of these collaborative efforts is needed.

School-family-community partnerships help to improve academic

outcomes.

The Home-School Team: An Emphasis on Parent

Involvement
Students thrive when their parents become part of
the classroom
Children learn best when the significant adults in their lives
-- parents, teachers, and other family and community
members -- work together to encourage and support them.
This basic fact should be a guiding principle as we think
about how schools should be organized and how children
should be taught. Schools alone cannot address all of a
child's developmental needs: The meaningful involvement of
parents and support from the community are essential.
The need for a strong partnership between schools and
families to educate children may seem like common sense.
In simpler times, this relationship was natural and easy to
maintain. Teachers and parents were often neighbors and
found many occasions to discuss a child's progress. Children
heard the same messages from teachers and parents and
understood that they were expected to uphold the same
standards at home and at school.

As society has become more complex and demanding,

though, these relationships have all too often fallen by the
wayside. Neither educators nor parents have enough time to
get to know one another and establish working relationships
on behalf of children. In many communities, parents are
discouraged from spending time in classrooms and
educators are expected to consult with family members only
when a child is in trouble. The result, in too many cases, is
misunderstanding, mistrust, and a lack of respect, so that
when a child falls behind, teachers blame the parents and
parents blame the teachers.

At the same time, our society has created artificial

distinctions about the roles that parents and teachers should
play in a young person's development. We tend to think that
schools should stick to teaching academics and that home is
the place where children's moral and emotional development
should take place.

Yet children don't stop learning about values and

relationships when they enter a classroom, nor do they
cease learning academics -- and attitudes about learning --
when they are at home or elsewhere in their community.
They constantly observe how the significant adults in their
lives treat one another, how decisions are made and
executed, and how problems are solved.

All the experiences children have, both in and out of school,

help shape their sense that someone cares about them, their
feelings of self-worth and competency, their understanding
of the world around them, and their beliefs about where they
fit into the scheme of things.

These days, it can take extraordinary efforts to build strong

relationships between families and educators. Schools have
to reach out to families, making them feel welcome as full
partners in the educational process. Families, in turn, have
to make a commitment of time and energy to support their
children both at home and at school.

The effort involved in reestablishing these connections is

well worth it, as many communities across the country --
including those we work with -- are discovering. Our
experience is that significant and meaningful parent
involvement is possible, desirable, and valuable in improving
student growth and performance.

A Starting Point
The communities in which we are involved -- mostly inner
city neighborhoods -- tend to start with relatively poor
relationships between schools and families. Many of the
parents experienced failure during their own school days and
are reluctant to set foot inside their children's schools.
Teachers commute to work and often know very little about
the neighborhood outside the school. Before they can
develop effective partnerships, educators and families in
these communities first have to learn to trust and respect
one another.

Although it is less obvious, the same is true in more affluent

communities. The lack of trust and respect can be seen in
the growing numbers of parents choosing to enroll their
children in private schools or educate them at home, and in
the growing reluctance of voters to approve school-bond
issues. At the same time, relatively few schools have open-
door policies allowing parents to visit at any time, and
parents who insist on playing an active role in their children's
education are often branded as troublemakers.

The starting point in any community is to create opportunities

where parents and teachers can learn that they both have
children's best interests at heart. We applaud the growing
trend to decentralize decision making from central offices to
individual schools because it creates opportunities for
parents and educators to work together, making decisions
about school policies and procedures. Some may see this
arrangement as shifting power from school staff to parents,
but it's not power shifting; it's power sharing. It is
empowering all the adults who have a stake in children's
development.

Participation on school-based planning and management

teams gives parents a chance to learn about the professional
side of schooling -- to understand the inner workings of
curriculum and instruction. It also allows them to educate
school staff about the community and demonstrate that
parents have much to offer if provided the opportunities to do
so.

Working together as full partners, parents, teachers,

administrators, businesspeople, and other community
members can create an educational program that meets
unique local needs and reflects the diversity within a school
without compromising high performance expectations and
standards. They can foster a caring and sensitive school
climate that respects and responds to students' differences
as well as their similarities.

A Wide Variety of Roles

Besides participating in governance, parents can be involved
in schools in many roles. There are the traditional ways:
encouraging children to complete homework, attending
parent-teacher conferences, and being active members of
their school's parent-teacher organization. Other roles,
however, require more commitment: serving as mentors,
teacher aides, or lunchroom monitors, or providing
assistance to schools and students in myriad other ways.

At a time when schools are adopting curricula based on real-

world problems and information, families can make a
valuable contribution by sharing first-hand information about
work, hobbies, history, and other personal experiences,
either in person or via a computer network. Perhaps most
important, parents can simply take the time to go to their
schools and observe, learning about what their children and
their children's teachers are doing.
The hectic pace of modern life can make this kind of
involvement seem out of reach for many parents. But there
are positive signs that it is becoming more feasible.
Employers, concerned about the quality of the future
workforce, are starting to adopt policies that allow parents
time off to participate on a school's planning and
management team or volunteer time at regular intervals. And
more schools are offering either day care or preschool,
which makes it easier for parents with young children to
spend time at an older child's school.

This level of parent involvement in schools allows parents

and staff to work together in respectful and mutually
supportive ways, creating an environment in which
understanding, trust, and respect can flourish. At the same
time, students get consistent messages from the important
adults in their lives. When children observe that home and
school are engaged in a respectful partnership for their
benefit, they are likely to develop more positive attitudes
about school and achieve more, compared to situations in
which school and home are seen as being worlds apart.

Better Lines of Communication

Regardless of a parent's direct involvement in school
activities, it is vital for parents and teachers to communicate
effectively with one another. Each has a piece of the picture
of a child's development, and each can be more effective
when information is shared. Constant communication helps
ensure that both schools and homes are responsive to
students' unique needs and therefore support children's
overall development.
Some of this interaction should be face to face, either at the
school, at home, at a parent's worksite, or at another
convenient location. It must be considered an integral part of
schooling, and adequate time must be provided during
regular working hours for school staff to carry it out. At the
same time, this communication must be recognized as a
critical part of parenting, and parents must make the
commitment to meet periodically with their children's
teachers.

Technology can allow educators and parents to be linked

into a sturdier web of mutual support than ever before.
Schools and homes can be connected through computer
networks that allow them to freely share information, via
email and bulletin boards, twenty-four hours a day and year-
round.

It's not hard to imagine a time in the near future when all
parents will be able to quickly call up information such as a
student's schedule for the week, current assignments, and
suggestions from teachers about what they can do to support
learning goals at home. They'll be able to review what the
child has been doing by looking at actual samples of
schoolwork that have been collected in an electronic
portfolio.

To ensure that everyone, regardless of income or other

circumstances, has equal access to such electronic tools,
some schools work with businesses and other partners to
create computer-lending programs for families. All schools
should consider creating similar programs. The needed
computers should also be available to parents at a variety of
public settings such as schools, libraries, and government
buildings, and there should be free or low-cost classes to
teach educators and parents how to use them to foster
learning.

The establishment of computer networks linking schools and

homes fits neatly with another positive trend we've noticed:
More and more schools are broadening their mission to
provide educational services for their entire community.

Lifelong learning is rapidly becoming a requirement for

success in the modern world. Parents and other community
members can either attend classes at a school or study at
home using distance learning technologies, with content
supplied by their local school or by one far away. Through
these networks, parents can not only advance their own
education but also demonstrate for their children that adults
need to keep working at learning, too.

But the biggest winners are the children. When we walk into
a school and see parents and teachers working together, in
all sorts of roles, it's a sure sign that the school challenges
the very best in students and helps all, regardless of race,
class, or culture, realize their fullest potential.
So these intensive partnerships of School- Home-
Community in the Midst of Covid-19 Pandemic is very much
valuable in the education of our children for the youth is the
hope of our country.
Thank You