Meghan Draudt

EDES 640 Week 4

CRP Parent & Community Engagement Rationale

Classrooms are not complete without family and community involvement.

Integrating families and communities into class events and lessons helps students succeed

academically and improves the relationship between the home and school environments.

Because In the last decade, ELL students have become increasingly isolated, segregated

by language, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, it is now more important than ever to

bring ELL families into the classroom (Arias & Morillo-Campbell, 2008, p.6).

Integrating each students community and family into the school environment will help

ELL students feel comfortable at school and confident joining in with school activities.

When schools, families, and communities work together, students derive greater

benefit from their education. Interactions between schools, parents, and communities

promote greater communication and, therefore, students are more likely to receive

common messages from various people about the importance of school, of working hard,

of thinking creatively, of helping one another, and of staying in school (Epstein,

Sanders, Simon, Salinas, Jansorn, & Van Voorhis, 2009, p.8). When students are

motivated to succeed both at home and at school, they not only work harder on class

assignments, but also have greater confidence in each environment. In striving to create

more family-like schools and promoting parent involvement, teachers are making

each child feel special and included (Epstein et. al., 2009, p.9).
 Despite the efforts of many teachers to involve parents, countless families are

isolated from the school and encounter significant barriers to becoming involved in their

childs education. Barriers to education include the inability to understand English,

unfamiliarity with the school system, and differences in cultural norms and cultural

capital, all of which impede school participation (Arias & Morillo-Campbell, 2008, p.1).

The first step to increasing parental involvement is identifying and recognizing these

barriers. After acknowledging that significant barriers exist for families, teachers and staff

should work to discover methods of overcoming these barriers. Considering Nearly 70%

of ELL students nationally enroll in only 10% of elementary schools, and in these schools

ELL students account, on average, for almost 50% of the student body, eliminating

barriers for the large population of ELL families should be a top priority in all schools

(Arias & Morillo-Campbell, 2008, p.6).

ELL families are often assumed to be absent from school events because they are

uninterested in their childs education. This misconception is entirely false and, in fact,

linguistically and culturally diverse groups share a deep concern about the education of

their children (Arias & Morillo-Campbell, 2008, p.7). Therefore, ELL parents and

families should be considered assets to their childs education, rather than a hindrance.

Because an overlapping of the family, school, and community spheres of influence aids

student success, all negative assumptions regarding parent participation should be

eliminated. It is the teachers responsibility to increase communication with families and

promote involvement on any level. With these improvements, students will feel less

isolated in the classroom and will have greater academic success.

References
Arias, B.M. and Morillo-Campbell, M. (2008). Promoting ELL parental involvement:

Challenges in contested times. Education Policy Research Unit, & Education and

the Public Interest Center. Retrieved from

http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/documents/EPSL-0801-250-EPRU.pdf

Epstein, J. L., Sanders, M. G., Simon, B. S., Salinas, K. C., Jansorn, N. R., & Van

Voorhis, F. L. (2009). School, family, and community partnerships. Corwin

Press.Retrieved from http://www.sagepub.com/upmdata/6799_epstein_ch_1.pdf