Gwendolyn Woolley Elementary School
“A Community of Learners”
Dr. Darryl Wyatt, Principal
Parent and Family Engagement Policy
2017-2018
The administration, staff, and parents of Gwendolyn Woolley Elementary School believe in the following Mission Statement of our school: We are Gwendolyn Woolley Elementary School, a community of learners. Each day we are dedicated to creating a positive learning environment that celebrates mutual respect, personal responsibility, and academic success as we prepare for our future.
This policy has been jointly developed and agreed upon by Gwendolyn Woolley Elementary School and the committee members of the School Improvement Team with valued input from staff and parents. The Parent and Family Engagement Policy is then distributed in an understandable and uniform format and to the extent practicable. Currently we distribute the Policy in English and Spanish, but we will make other translation efforts should there be additional language needs.
The school has involved parents in the writing of the School Performance Plan each spring by inviting interested parents to the School Improvement Team meeting. When the School Performance Plan is created for the year, parents are asked for their input during each step of the process. Parents who participate in this process are chosen based on teacher suggestion, parent volunteerism, and other similar processes.
The Educational Involvement Accords are now part of the online enrollment process. However, it is still important that families take the time to review this document together. Staff members discuss the accord with their students the first week of school and refer to it repeatedly throughout the year. The Accord is used to develop this Policy and is referred to during Family Reading Night, phone calls home, and during Parent-Teacher Conferences.
In order to build the school’s and parents’ capacity for strong performance, Gwendolyn Woolley Elementary School will:
1. Through a variety of Family Nights, provide parents with a variety of information in reading and math, as well as homework, library skills and many other areas as needed by our population. Math Night skills taught to parents, through games or activities, may include the use of dice to teach addition, subtraction, or multiplication. Other activities may include games dealing with probability, money bingo, graphing, or place value. Parents are also shown a variety of websites and apps that can be used to reinforce math skills. During Reading Night, games are made with parents that may include skills such as ordering a paragraph, sight words, time lines, sentence sense, annotating, text features and reading games. Parents are also shown various websites and apps that will reinforce their child’s skills as well as improving their reading level. Evaluations from these activities are read and addressed, whether by an individual teacher, at a future Family Night activity, phone call, or any other appropriate response needed.
2. Communicate with the parents through school newsletters, Open House, Family Nights, various memos concerning school activities (tutoring, school pictures, awards for assemblies, etc.), parent – teacher conferences, and phone calls by a variety of staff members. These communications are provided in English, as well as Spanish. If other translations become necessary, they will also be provided.
Parental concerns are addressed through the school newsletter comment box that can be detached and returned to the office or classroom teacher and through monthly parent meetings with the principal. Concerns or questions are addressed face to face at the meeting. Written concerns or questions are addressed by the appropriate staff member.
3. Take advantage of the many parents that volunteer to help in the classroom or escort students on field trips. Invitations are also issued to parents requesting their presence at assemblies when their child/children receive an award.
4. Based on input from parents, provide staff training on how to increase parent engagement. Such training will include, but not be limited to, reading with their child, math games with results, and building background knowledge. Teachers will communicate what activities the parents can engage in to promote and extend the learning that has taken place in the classroom. This may take the form of a weekly letter to the parents about homework, a phone call to the parent, a phone call from the parent, or an after school activity that involves both the parent and child such as a Family Night.
The September Family Night, held on the 28th at 3:30 P.M., will include information about the State’s academic content and achievement standards, State and local assessments, the school’s curriculum, and a Title I power point presentation which includes parent’s rights and responsibilities, how to monitor their student’s academic progress, how to work with the staff to improve the achievement of their child/children, involve families and others in the community in participatory roles at school such as the School Performance Plan, Career Day, and Field Day. Translation during the meeting is provided for parents that request it. For parents not attending the meeting, the information will be posted on the school’s website and addressed at the monthly parent meetings, scheduled at different times.
5. Collaborate with the community by increasing our contacts with area businesses, cultural groups and organizations to provide teachers, students, and parents with the knowledge of such groups and glean their support for our school. Businesses such as Panda Express and McDonalds have provided their facilities for fund raisers. Farmer Boys, Carl’s Jr. and In-N-Out Burger, have provided us with coupons used as rewards at the end of the year for academic success and perfect attendance.
6. Provide information on Title I participation and parents’ rights under Federal guidelines. In addition to the required Title I meeting in September, a variety of other activities are planned throughout the year to provide parents with materials and training to support their child’s learning. Staff members have instructed parents about communicating through Class Dojo. Parents are also guided through the steps to access Infinite Campus. At various times throughout the year, mainly at parent-teacher conferences, parents are given the results of a variety of assessments that their child has taken thus far. Parents are advised of their child’s standing as it relates to proficiency.
7. Our Social Worker has provided a variety of opportunities for our parents including, but not limited to homework help classes, STEM nights, health and wellness classes, Be Safe, Be Responsible and Respectful classes that were also taught to our students, parenting classes, and a leadership class for this year provided by FACES University of Family Learning. The Truancy Diversion Project encourages parents to participate in a program designed to improve student attendance. Through this program, support is provided to both students and parents in order to meet our attendance goal as well as increase academic performance. The social worker and our guidance counselor have made themselves available at all functions that involve parents. Referrals can also be made to the social services team by teachers and staff. Newsletters, including community resources, are also made available to parents.
8. Results from the 2016-17 Districtwide Survey were closely examined. Information relative to the results were shared with staff during a staff meeting in September. In addition, results were shared with parents during the Annual Title 1 Parent Meeting, also in September. The results were overwhelmingly positive:
o 94% of the responses either agreed or strongly agreed with the question; “I like my child’s school”
o 98% of the responses confirmed that teachers at the school inform the student about how he/she is doing.
o 97% of the parents surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that their child is getting a good education at Woolley.
o 91% of the responses felt that there was ample support at school to help children learn.
o 96% felt positive about the technology learning that was taking place at school.
The one area where the results were not positive involved the question; “My child’s school uses forms to elicit information from me which there is no clear necessity.” Forty eight percent of the respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with that statement. Therefore, as a school, we need to do a better job communicating the importance of a form when asking parents to complete it. In order to increase parent participation in the District Survey, a link to the survey will be provided on the website, robocalls will be made, notices will be sent home, and computers will be available in the office for parent use.
Política de Participación de Padres y Familia
2017-2018
La administración, el personal y los padres de la Escuela Primaria Gwendolyn Woolley creen en la siguiente declaración de la Misión de nuestra escuela: En la Escuela Primaria Gwendolyn Woolley, somos una comunidad de aprendices. Cada día nos dedicamos a crear un ambiente de aprendizaje positivo que promueve el respeto mutuo, la responsabilidad personal y el éxito académico para preparamos para nuestro futuro.
Esta política se ha desarrollado de forma conjunta y acordada por la Escuela Primaria Gwendolyn Woolley y los miembros del comité del Equipo de Mejora de la Escuela con opiniones del personal y los padres. La Política de Participación de Padres y Familia se distribuye en un formato comprensible y uniforme en la medida de lo posible. Actualmente distribuimos la Política en Inglés y Español, pero vamos a hacer esfuerzos de traducción si hay necesidades en otros idiomas adicionales.
La escuela ha involucrado a los padres en la redacción del Plan de Progreso Académico Escolar cada primavera, invitando a los padres interesados a la reunión del Equipo de Mejora de la Escuela. Cuando se creó el Plan de Progreso Académico de la escuela para este año, se pidió a los padres sus opiniones durante cada paso del proceso. Los padres que participan en este proceso son elegidos en base a sugerencias de maestros, padres voluntarios, y otros procesos similares.
Los Acuerdos de Participación educativos son ahora parte del proceso de inscripción en línea. Sin embargo es importante que las familias tomen su tiempo para revisar éste documento. Los miembros del personal de la escuela discuten el acuerdo con sus estudiantes la primera semana de clases y se refieren a ella en varias ocasiones durante todo el año. El Acuerdo se utiliza para desarrollar esta Política y se dá a conocer durante la Noche de Lectura Familiar, llamadas telefónicas a casa, y durante las conferencias de padres y maestros.
La Escuela primaria Gwendolyn Woolley, con el fin de fortalecer la capacidad de rendimiento de los padres y de la escuela misma hará lo siguiente:
1. A través de una variedad de noches familiares, ofrecerá a los padres una variedad de información en lectura y matemáticas, las tareas, las habilidades necesarias en la biblioteca y muchas otras áreas, según sea necesario por nuestra población. Habilidades matemáticas que se enseñan a los padres durante la noche de Matemáticas a través de juegos y actividades que pueden incluir el uso de dados para enseñar la suma, resta, multiplicación. Otras actividades pueden incluir juegos para enseñar la probabilidad, bingo con dinero, gráficas, o el valor de posición. También se les muestra a los padres una variedad de sitios web y aplicaciones que se pueden utilizar para reforzar las habilidades en matemáticas.
Durante la Noche de Lectura los padres tendrán juegos que pueden incluir habilidades como ordenar un párrafo, palabras del vocabulario, líneas de tiempo, el sentido de las frases, características del texto y juegos de lectura. También se les muestran varios sitios web y aplicaciones para reforzar las habilidades y mejorar los niveles de lectura de sus hijos.
2. Comunicación con los padres a través de boletines escolares, Inicio de Ciclo Escolar, Noches familiares, noticias relativas a las actividades escolares (tutoría, fotos escolares, premios por mejoramiento Académico, etc.) conferencias de padres - maestros, y llamadas telefónicas por miembros del personal escolar. Estas cartas serán enviadas en inglés y en español. Si se presenta la necesidad de traducirlas en otro idioma también podremos hacerlo.
Cualquier problema que se pueda presentar será mencionado en la carta que se les manda a casa. Este papel puede ser llenado y enviado de regreso a la oficina de la escuela y la oficina será encargada de entregárselo a la maestra de su hijo. Cuando se presente algún problema o pregunta de acuerdo a la educación de sus hijos, este papel deberá ser llenado y se hará una junta con el director para poder hablar del tema. Dicha junta se llevará a cabo con el personal adecuado para resolver el problema.
3. Tome ventaja como muchos padres voluntarios para ayudar en el aula o acompañar a los estudiantes en las excursiones. Se envían invitaciones a los padres para que asistan a las ceremonias cuando sus niño(a) reciben un premio.
4. Con la ayuda de los padres, proporcionará la capacitación al personal sobre cómo aumentar la participación de los padres dentro de su propia clase. Dicha capacitación incluirá, pero no se limita a, la lectura con sus niños, juegos de matemáticas con resultados, y la construcción del conocimiento de fondo.
Comunicación con los padres a través de su niño(a) para que sepan en que actividades los padres pueden participar en promover y extender el aprendizaje que ha tenido lugar en el aula. Esto puede ser en forma de una carta semanal a los padres acerca de la tarea, una llamada telefónica o una actividad después de la escuela, que involucra tanto al padre y al niño(a), así como una Noche en Familia. La Noche Familiar de septiembre se celebró el día 28 a las 3:30 pm, e incluyó información sobre el contenido y los estándares de logro académico del Estado, las evaluaciones estatales y locales, programas de estudios de la escuela, y una presentación de Power Point del Título I, que incluye los derechos y responsabilidades de los padres, cómo supervisar el progreso académico del estudiante, la forma de trabajar con el personal escolar para mejorar el rendimiento de sus niño / niños, involucrar a las familias y otros miembros de la comunidad en los roles de participación en la escuela, como el Plan de Progreso Académico Escolar, Día de las Profesiones y el Día de Actividades Atléticas. Traducciones para los padres de familia durante la reunión será disponible. Para los padres que no puedan presentarse en las reuniones, se podrán informar de la junta porque toda la información dicha en el evento será puesta en página de internet de la escuela. dicha junta llevara el nombre del motivo de la reunión y la fecha del evento.