Lincoln Elementary School

Gilbert, Arizona
Parent Presentation

Partnerships between families, and communities :

the influence they have on childrens development
Created by: Roseangela Dupree
2/22/15

Middle Childhood years: Ages 6-11

This is a time when children are eager to learn more about the world around them and they will be making gains in socially
and academically becoming prepared to be independent within that community. Children in this stage of life are undergoing many
changes physically, mentally, and developmentally. Although some children want to learn to be more independent they still need
the guidance of older peers, siblings, parents , and community members to teach them how to progress in a positive manner to
their adolescent and young adult lives.
This presentation will explore ways that partnerships between the children and their families, the school, and the community
can all help to guide these children to their goals during this stage of their lives.

As a child development specialist

Throughout working with many children and their families, I have learned that the parents are the child experts and the children are
indeed their own little individuals. Each child differs in many ways and the best way to accomplish goals within families and
communities is to work together to enhance the childs abilities to learn and grow as a strong community member.
There are many different theories that can be explored on childrens development; how they learn and grow, and what factors in
life play a role in their development.; knowing the milestones that are achieved by children throughout their development helps
to encourage their growth throughout their lives as well. As a child development specialist my goal is to work with the experts
(parents) and communities; to assure that there are programs and achievable goals in place to help our children obtain these
milestones and make gains for future development that they will acquire in life.

Rationale for the parent presentation

Lincoln Elementary School has asked me to present the parents and teachers with ideas that could potentially stimulate and
enhance the children and families to become more involved in their community as well as for the communities to become more
involved in the development of the children. This presentation is intended to be resourceful for both families and the community
members to achieve higher standards of development for the children through working together and offering the children the best
services to achieve these goals together. We will explore programs and services that are available to the families as well as to look
at ways we can enhance community involvement between the school, families and outlining businesses, organizations and group
gatherings from the community.

Rationale continued
It is suggested by Santoloupo, & Pratt (1994) that; Children whos parents engage in community services and stress the
importance for compassion of others; tend to hold socially responsible values. This further adds to the concepts the child will have
later in life to continue to endorse situational and societal factors with a more altruistic lifestyle; meaning an unselfish concern for
the welfare or well-being of others.
School and communities can also encourage these acts and development by promoting discussions of controversial issues , and
insisting that the children listen to and respect the views of others while fostering the knowledge and critical analysis of political
concerns and commitments to social causes (Torney-Purta, Barber, & Wilkenfeld, (2007).

Understanding the world that our children learn from

Bronfenbrenners Ecological System : What is the Mesosystem and how does it connect families, schools, and communities?

Parent involvement encourages development

Parental involvement within the school is key to the success of the children. According to Snow, (n.d.) for the Developmentally
Appropriate Practice (DAP), and incorporated into NAEYC standards for programs serving young children; Parental involvement is
a critical element of high-quality early care and education. It has been mandated by the Head Start framework since Head Starts
inception in 1964 .
Epstein, J. (n.d.). Epstein's framework of six types of involvement; offer these strategies for parent
involvement:
TYPE 1-PARENTING: Assist families with parenting and child-rearing skills, understanding child and adolescent development, and
setting home conditions that support children as students at each age and grade level. Assist schools in understanding families.
TYPE 2-COMMUNICATING: Communicate with families about school programs and student progress through effective school-tohome and home-to-school communications.
TYPE 3-VOLUNTEERING: Improve recruitment, training, work, and schedules to involve families as volunteers and audiences at
the school or in other locations to support students and school programs.
TYPE 4-LEARNING AT HOME: Involve families with their children in learning activities at home, including homework and other
curriculum-linked activities and decisions.
TYPE 5-DECISION MAKING: Include families as participants in school decisions, governance, and advocacy through PTA/PTO,
school councils, committees, and other parent organizations.
TYPE 6-COLLABORATING WITH THE COMMUNITY: Coordinate resources and services for families, students, and the
school with businesses, agencies, and other groups, and provide services to the community
The next segment of this presentation will look closely at each of these strategies and propose steps of
immediate action that Lincoln Elementary school would like to implement in hopes for better success for
the students in achieving their goals individually as well as a group within the community.

TYPE 1
PARENTING
Lincoln Elementary School wants to make parents aware that we want to focus on all families and make sure that we are doing all we
can to help all families establish home environments to support children as students. Identifying this as Lincolns pledge to families; the
school would like to implement educational classes for parents to research community programs such as WIC (Women, Infants, and
Children). This program offers supplemental grocery funds for things such as milk, cheese, bread, formulas, eggs, and cereals for
families with children under the age of five years old. The school will have a two day segment for WIC representatives to come and talk
with parents about the program and how to become enrolled if you are not already; to get assistance in the healthy nutrition program that
they offer for families. There will also be further nutritional workshops with dieticians and services such social services for food
assistance programs offered through the county as well. Communications will be mailed to your home for these events.
As Epstein (n.d) suggests in strategy one:
Family support programs to assist families with health, nutrition, and other services.
Home visits at transition points to pre-school, elementary, middle, and high school. Neighborhood
meetings to help families understand schools and to help schools understand families.

TYPE 2
COMMUNICATING
It is known that approximately 58% of the students here at Lincoln Elementary are second language learners. The majority of the
students at Lincoln Elementary School are Hispanic (93%). Five percent of the student population is white, and 2% is American Indian.
In Epsteins strategy two; it is emphasized that communication between school and home is pertinent to help guide the children in a
positive direction. In efforts to design effective forms of school-to-home and home-to-school communications about school programs
and children's progress. The school will begin implementing a daily journal (agenda) program that will come home with the child daily
from school with information on things such as homework for that evening as well as to have a sample form of the work so that the
parents have a good example of the common core strategies that the school is now using for curriculum. The parents are asked to
review the childs agenda and sign it before it returns to school with the child the following day. It is also going to be implemented that
contact information for each of the teachers will be available inside the front of the childs agenda for easier communications with
parents that may have any questions or concerns.

Communication
Continued
Lincoln Elementary also recognizes that many of our students parents have jobs that takes time away from you availability to
come to the school for meetings and events. We are very proud to announce the newest addition to our school for parent/ school
communication. Our school has linked up with Education World to create a school website enhanced with all of the classrooms
individually and information will be updated daily. This website will have a calendar of daily events, lesson plans, Staff contact and
development as well as a newsletter sign up for all parents that would like the schools newsletters sent to them via email.
This source is very easy to use and is also available in Spanish for our parents that are not as fluent in reading English. You will
be able to access all of the information from the school daily if you would like to.
Our younger students will also be learning to use computer skills as they document their progress daily on our newest class dojo
program where your youngsters can create their own avatar on their site and you can check any time of day to see what their score is
throughout the day! All information needed for getting into these sites will be sent home with all of the children upon completing
their sites.

TYPE 3
VOLUNTEERING
There have been many parents that have offered
to volunteer for things such as field trips, class
assistance and lunch monitoring. Due to higher
school violence and current events in many areas
of the school shootings; we appreciate that our
families and visitors have respected our
checkpoints at all of the entrances of the school.
The school will continue to keep all entrances
locked and monitored by our staff that are trained
in first response. We will still welcome parents into
the school for any reason; we only request that you
have photo I.D. ready to show and to sign in with a
visitor tag that will be given you upon entrance.

In attempting to maintain Epsteins volunteering standard while still

keeping the safety of the children and staff in highest regards; you will
also find our volunteer questionnaire located in your welcome folder. You
will be able to fill it out and return it with your child at your convenience
when school begins. These are our goals:
Recruit volunteers widely so that all families know that their time and
talents are welcome.
Make flexible schedules for volunteers, assemblies, and events to enable
parents who work to
participate.
Organize volunteer work; provide training; match time and talent with
school, teacher, and student needs; and recognize efforts so that
participants are productive.
This allows for you to express your interests as well as availability and
will allow the school to best suite these interests and times with the
schedules of your childs activities and field trips.
Results for Students
Skill in communicating with adults.
Increased learning of skills that receive tutoring or
targeted attention from volunteers.
Awareness of many skills, talents, occupations, and
contributions of parent and other volunteers (Epstein, n.d.)
Although we realize that there will be challenges to this volunteer
program; our staff and officials want to assure all of the parents and
students that safety of our children is priority!
As always again we thank all of our volunteers for adhering to our
guidelines and regulations for this to allow us to keep your participation
as a much needed assistance in helping our children develop and grow!

TYPE 4
LEARNING AT HOME
As aforementioned our school website will offer lesson plans and daily activities in each of the classrooms. There will also be a
category on the sight where parents are able to research the Arizona Common Core Standards, helpful hints on the curriculum being
used and again as always there will be contact information for all of the teachers within our school. We are proud to announce that
there will also be a connection in our site that will allow you as parents to interact with some of the school work that your child is
completing in the class! There will be a tab in the site that will allow you and your child to play interactive games while at home.
This allows you to see the progresses your child is making in many of the core areas of school as well as the child to make gains in:
skills, abilities, and test scores linked to homework and classwork.
Homework completion.
Positive attitude toward schoolwork.
View of parents as more similar to teacher and of home as more similar to school.
Self-concept of ability as learner.

TYPE 5
DECISION MAKING
As with any partnership, we want to include parents in school decisions, developing parent leaders and representatives to convey
even more importance to your involvement and the impact that it will have on positive influences for your children. While the
school needs to follow state standards for curriculum and follow up with mandated testing and accurately reporting our findings to
the state; we also need to input and ideas of you all to be implemented as well.
To help assist in the childrens awareness of representation of families in school decisions, understanding that student rights are
protected, and specific benefits linked to policies enacted by parent organizations and experienced by students; our school is going
to create with the help of the parents a PTG (parent, teacher group) where monthly the parents involved and teachers or staff
members involved will get together to plan events to benefit all of the students, created programs to enhance community
involvement and address and areas of concerns for the parents while their children are in school. I myself have been involved in the
parent group for my children and have headed a program called Bullies to Buddies this has addressed issues from bullying to
helping children better understand that we are all different in many aspects of their lives; this creates a better and more
compassionate understanding of each other. It has thus far been a productive team made up of parents, teachers, and students that
want to make a difference.

TYPE 6
COLLABORATING WITH COMMUNTY
Awareness of community contributions to
the school

The Library will make an allotment of $20,000.00 per year

to the students fund! This fund will help to pay the teachers

Lincoln Elementary school is proud to announce that we

have come together with our local library to create a fund to
assist children through the summer months with a reading and
math program! The Southeast Regional Library - Gilbert
Maricopa County Library District has joined with our school to
create a grant fund to help support a summer reading and
recreational program to our students. This program will raise
funds for our children to attend a summer recreational and
reading skills program that will allow the children to attend
school for six weeks over the summer to encourage the

that will be there for reading and math and the adolescent
students from our high school that will work with the children.
The older students will be offered the position based on
their academic achievements with their own schooling as well
as proper school behavior and attitude. The older students
will be chosen by school counselors and faculty that are aware
of their interactions with other students, and will be paid
minimum wage for their services as well as to earn community
service credits towards their graduation.
Donations toward this fund can be made directly to the

children to continue working on skills such as reading and

Maricopa County Library located at: 775 N Greenfield Rd

math.

Gilbert, AZ 85234

COLLABORATING WITH COMMUNTY Cont.

As we continue to identify and integrate resources and services from the community to strengthen school programs, family
practices, and student learning and development; we are also wanting to implement strategies to:
Inform for students and families on community health, cultural, recreational, social support.
give information on community activities that link to learning skills and talents, including summer
programs for students.
Service integration through partnerships involving school; civic, counseling, cultural, health,
recreation, and other agencies and organizations; and businesses.
Service to the community by students, families, and schools (e.g., recycling, art, music, drama, and
other activities for seniors or others).
As suggested by Epstein (n.d.); "Community" to mean not only the neighborhoods where students' homes and schools are located
but
also any neighborhoods that influence their learning and development. Community rated not only by low or high social or economic
qualities, but by strengths and talents to support students, families, and schools. Community means all who are interested in and
affected by the quality of education, not just those with children in the schools.

Community Concluded
As we move further ahead utilizing Epstein's Framework of Six Types of Involvement; (n.d.) we want to focus more on
community involvement, family interaction and knowledge and use of local resources by family and child to increase skills and
talents or to obtain needed services, interactions with other families in community activities as well as awareness of school's role in
the community and of community's contributions to the school. All of the programs that we want to implement are at no cost to the
families and we are proud to say that we want to involve the children in the lives of our elderly communities that are located at the
Spring Brook apartments here in town. We are planning Project Marigold; where in the spring our children in grades k-2 will
plant marigolds around the adult living facility in town and the Gilbert Fire Station; located at 3595 E Warner Rd Gilbert, AZ
85296, United States; has agreed to provide lunches for our senior members of the community as well as the children.
This will be a day of planting flowers, learning from each other and spending the day in the great outdoors. We will also be
more than happy to accept volunteers for this field trip as we will be having a great time and want to encourage parent involvement.
Lunch will be provided for you as well and the sign up sheet will come home with your child!