Parents and Community Can Play Key Roles in School Success
Educators are turning to parents and outside partners in formal and grassroots efforts that boost morale, achievement, and students' sense of security
With educators and policymakers acutely aware of the role that home and community factors can play in students' safety and perception of safety at school—and its attendant impact on behavior and even academic performance—many are turning to parents and community members for help and support.The perception issue is real. Children who were living in poverty and in communities where crime rates were higher and who attended inner city schools were predictably more likely to view their school environments as dangerous, according to Mary Keegan Eamon, a social work professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Jun Sung Hong, a doctoral student at the same school, whose research on the subject appeared in the Journal of Child and Family Studies in June 2012.
The researchers found that, in some cases, simple responses to such concerns can prove surprisingly profound. They discovered that 10- to 14-year-old students who talked to their parents about their studies, school activities, and other concerns actually felt safer in school.
In other cases, schools and school districts, aware that behavioral issues can be pervasive as barriers to learning, use everything from one-to-one help for parents and students to systemic programs in which an entire district gets on board to create or spark grassroots support to make safer schools.
Such is the case at Eastgate Elementary School in Kennewick, Wash., where staff members wanted to increase a sense of safety for students coming from a neighborhood struggling with threats of gang violence, says Stephanie Weyh, an English-as-a-second-language teacher who worked on the program as a co-chair with Michele Larrabee of Eastgate's Action Team for Partnerships.
