2008-2009 Community Connections

The following article was printed in the August 24, 2008 edition of the Kansas City, Kansan

Family Advocacy Day a sign of different times

Well, the school year has officially begun. All of our students are back in school, and next week, we will be having our first major district-wide event. On Wednesday and Thursday of next week [Aug. 27-28], we will be having Family Advocacy Days in all of our schools.

Now, I know that there are more than a few readers who are thinking: "Huh? I don't remember having a 'Family Advocacy Day' when I was in school!" Well, unless you graduated last year, you probably didn't!

Remember last week when I told you that we do things differently here in KCK? Well, this is a perfect example. Most of us remember traditional Parent/Teacher Conferences. They happened some time during the late fall, and they usually involved having one or both parents come up to the school, to sit down and be told by their child's teachers how their child was doing in school.

Because these conferences usually happened well into the school year, the teacher(s) had quite a lot of data to share with the parents. Often, they had grades, homework, and quiz and test scores. So, the conferences were an opportunity for the teacher to tell the parent about their child, and how their child was performing in school.

If you had a child who was successful in school, you probably remember Parent/Teacher conferences quite fondly. Who wouldn't enjoy listening to a teacher talk about how smart their child was, and how well they were doing in school? However, if your child was struggling, these conferences probably evoked a much more complex set of feelings. Depending on just how much your child was struggling, those feelings might include embarrassment, guilt, shame, and at times, even defensiveness and anger.

Well, as much as I talk in this space about the importance of relationships here in KCKPS, you can imagine that creating feelings of guilt, shame and anger in parents would be taking us in the wrong direction. Rather, we have tried to figure out how to create positive relationships with our parents, with teachers and parents working together on behalf of students.

We understand here in KCK that every student needs support at home to be successful at school. To help make this possible, we have created the Family Advocacy system, in which every professional and support staff person in a school building is assigned 12 to 17 students and their families. Those relationships last for multiple years, and for middle and high school students, for the entire time the student is in the building.

Advocates help new students get oriented to their building, and to their small learning community; they work with students and families to identify interests, build on individual strengths, and head off problems; they support students' academic and behavioral progress, using information collected from other teachers, the school, and the district; they plan and meet with the student and their parent(s) at least twice a year; they get in touch with each family at least once a month; and they help other faculty and staff work effectively with the student.

All this is a fancy way of saying that our advocacy program makes sure that each student is known well by a caring adult in their building. Together with families, our advocates work to find a way meet the needs of each individual child. We believe that, over time this will go a long way towards helping all students to find success.

This Family Advocacy system is a core component of our reform effort, First Thing First, and has been in place for many years. However, up until last year, we were still having traditional Parent/Teacher conferences in November. It occurred to us that, if we were serious about building strong relationships with our parents, we needed to start at the beginning of the year, not in November. So, we moved our conferences to the beginning of the school year, and we now call those days "Family Advocacy" days.

Moving these "conferences" to the beginning of the school year created an interesting new set of challenges. Since teachers wouldn’t have any grades or other student work to share, what would they talk with parents about? Well, what teachers have discovered is that, rather than needing to "talk" to parents, Family Advocacy Day presents an opportunity for teachers to listen to parents, to learn from them, and to build relationships with them.

In this first conference of the year, advocates and parents have an excellent opportunity to get to know each other. The parent has the chance to tell the teacher about their child, including what their child is interested in, how they learn best, and what subjects they find most challenging.

Together with the advocate, parents are able to make a plan for how to make their child successful during the school year. In many schools, the student is included in the planning, so that the student, family, and school are all on the same page.

Moving away from traditional Parent/Teacher conference hasn't always been smooth sailing. For many parents, and for many teachers, the old system worked, and they have been reluctant to change it. However, we strongly believe that we are creating a system that has the potential to work for all children, and to get all children to high levels of achievement.

Parents, we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on Wednesday, August 27 and Thursday, August 28 for our Family Advocacy days. You are essential partners in making this school district great!

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