Supporting Student Success

Families and school staff continuously collaborate to support students’ learning and healthy development both at home and at school, and have regular opportunities to strengthen their knowledge and skills to do so effectively.

Parent involvement in children’s education has an impact on student success, not just in school but throughout life. When families are involved, students:

  • Earn higher grades;
  • Attend school more regularly;
  • Enjoy school more and behave better; and
  • Are more likely to go on to postsecondary education.

However, to become engaged in ways that boost student achievement, many families need information and encouragement from school staff and parent group leaders.

There are two main goals for the Standard Supporting Student Success

  1. Share information about student progress.
    Families should be informed of how their children are doing in school, as well as how the entire school is progressing. Questions that this standard addresses include:
  • Do parents and teachers communicate about student progress?
  • Do parents learn what good work looks like for their child’s age and grade?
  • Does the school use assessment and test results to inform parents which student skills need strengthening?  Tests such as ACCESS Language Proficiency, PARCC Tests, Classroom Assessments, and others as appropriate.2.     Support learning by engaging families.
    Families should be active participants in their children’s learning at home and at school.
  • Are families invited to observe their children’s classrooms, visit the school, and support student learning at school and/or home?
  • How do schools help families strengthen learning at home?
  • What after-school learning opportunities are there?  What are the needs for these?

Supporting Student Success in Action

Access the link below to see how one school supports student success through positive family-school partnerships.  (coming soon)

Toolkit

Family engagement and partnerships between schools, families, and communities are critical to the success of students in meeting the CCSS. As you implement the common core state standards in schools, a critical aspect as always, is to build engagement programs that include policies and practices that are rooted in the value of mutual respect, trust, courtesy, and focus on what families, schools, and communities can do together to support student success.

These videos, brochures and the Toolkit Resource pages for students and parents are especially useful in sharing information through parent-teacher conferences, workshops, family centers, sports events, newsletters, school events, websites, etc.

Action Steps

What Parents and School Staff Can Do to Support Student Success

Getting Started

  • Use the Family Engagement School Assessment for Supporting Student Success with a team of stakeholders including parents, teacher, administrators to identify strengths and needs for the school in practices and policies that support student success.
  • Start with the end in mind. Determine what parents need to know and do to support their children’s academic success.
  • Determine how family and community engagement can support school goals.
  • Link all events to student learning, including those activities focused on making all families feel welcome.

What Parents and Parent Leaders Can Do 

  1. Reflect on the results of the School Assessment for Measuring Supporting Student Success and Action Planning with a team of stakeholders including parents, teacher, administrators to identify strengths and needs for the school in practices and policies that support student success.
  2. Collaborate with school staff to develop a checklist and tip sheets for effective parent-teacher conferences.
  3. Work with school leadership to conduct workshops on interpreting standardized test data.
  4. Invite teachers and professionals from the community to speak at meetings on various topics.
  5. Provide workshops for parents and students on topics such as study skills, individual curriculum areas, and college and career planning.
  6. Provide parent involvement tips and suggestions through the school website, signs at the school and articles in the local newspaper.
  7. Refer to the resources below for use in family centers and other family accessible locations.

What School Leaders and Staff Can Do

  1. Reflect on the results of the School Assessment for Measuring Supporting Student Success and Action Planning with a team of stakeholders including parents, teacher, administrators to identify strengths and needs for the school in practices and policies that support student success.
  2. Ask parents to take an active role in reviewing student portfolios.
  3. Plan opportunities to give parents an overview of what students are learning, how students are assessed, what parents should expect, and how parents can help.
  4. Institute student-led parent-teacher conferences.
  5. Develop a family-school compact focused on student achievement.
  6. Make it a policy that teachers send home materials, such as interactive homework assignments, at least once a month to help families work with their children.
  7. Work with school leadership to conduct workshops for families on interpreting standardized test data.
  8. Provide age-appropriate materials and information with a college and career readiness focus.
  9. Use professional development days to address how the school community is partnering for student success.  Use School Assessment Tools to guide discussions, planning, and evaluation.

Resources and Tools

National PTA Parent’s Guide to Student Success K-12 

Informative brochures are available in English and Spanish through the following link:
http://www.pta.org/parents/content.cfm?ItemNumber=2583

The pamphlets are available in Spanish and English and provide an overview of what children will learn by the end of each grade in mathematics and English language arts. They also include specific parent tips, vocabulary, and questions to use with your children and their teachers at each grade level.

Parent Toolkit
http://www.parenttoolkit.com


This toolkit will help parents and teachers navigate a child’s journey from pre-kindergarten through high school. It is designed to help track and support progress at each stage. It includes growth charts for academic growth, social and emotional growth, and health and wellness. Hot topics for families in today’s world are featured regularly and a Parent Toolkit App is available for easy use. This web-based resource can be very useful for school wide use and inclusion on a web site.

Clave al Exito
http://exito.univision.com

This web-based resource can be very useful for school wide use and inclusion on web site. Everything is in English and Spanish and it includes grade guides, reading log tools, a parent-teacher translator communicator tools, multimedia parent academies, current tips and news, resources for parents and teachers with EL students and students with learning exceptionalities in special education.

An Administrator’s Guide to Engaging Families in the Common Core State Standards (pdf download)

A Parent’s Guide to the Common Core State Standards (pdf download)

A Student’s Guide to the Common Core State Standards (pdf download)

Videos:

http://vimeo.com/51933492
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheHuntInstitute
https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/common-core-standards-ela
http://www.corestandards.orgoming

Coming Soon:

All About Homework

Top Websites to Include on School Websites on Student Success

College and Career Readiness

Grandparents raising Grandchildren

Measuring the Cultural and Linguistic Responsiveness of Your School and Classroom

Professional development opportunities for building effective family-school partnerships programs for student success.

Media awareness, Internet Safety

NMPED FAQ