7th International Conference of the European Research Network about Parents in Education DIVERSITY IN EDUCATION ERNAPE 2009 ISBN 978-91-86238-82-2

School-Family and Community Partnership: Educational Achievements of Students with Special Needs

ZAHID MAJDEED

Lecturer, Special Education

Allama Iqbal Open University,

Islamabad, Pakistan.

ABSTRACT

More than 85% of the world’s disabled under age 15 are living in developing countries (Helander, 1993). Officially 2.49% people are with special needs in Pakistan but WHO (1980) and other international agencies reported more than 10% special needs people in Pakistan. Only 1% of this population is in schools (special schools). These schools are run by Government, Private organizations and NGOs. School-Family and Community partnership examples are very rare in these schools. The value of family and community involvement interventions to impact student achievements has been called into question by researchers and policymakers who believe studies are needed that compare students receiving a partnership intervention to those that are not. The study was conducted to compare the achievements of special needs students in schools with or without family and community partnerships. Analyses showed that, on average, schools working to implement school, family, and community partnerships liked with higher students’ achievements from one year to the next than the schools in the comparison group.

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7th International Conference of the European Research Network about Parents in Education DIVERSITY IN EDUCATION ERNAPE 2009 ISBN 978-91-86238-82-2

PREAMBLE

The way schools care about children is reflected in the way schools care about the children's families. If educators view children simply as students, they are likely to see the family as separate from the school (Joyce & Phi, 1995). It is very general in developing countries and especially in Pakistan that the family is expected to do its job and just leave the education of children to the schools. The educators always view students as children and they are likely to see both the family and the community as partners with the school in children's educational achievements. Joyce said that partners must recognize their shared interests in and responsibilities for children, and work together to create better programs and opportunities for students with special needs.

There are many reasons for developing school, family, and community partnerships. They can improve school programs and school climate, provide family services and support, increase parents' skills and leadership, connect families with others in the school and in the community, and help teachers with their work (Joyce & Phi, 1995). The main reason to have such partnerships is to help all special needs children succeed in school and in practical life. When family members, teachers, students, and community people view one another as partners in the education of special needs children, a caring community forms around special needs students and begins its work.

Family, School and community involvement that is linked to student learning has a greater effect on achievement than more general forms of involvement (Adams, 2004). The purpose of all such types of partnerships is to improve the achievements of students, making teaching learning process more effective and to improve the schools (Majeed, 2008). Pakistan total population is 175 million (Holbrook, 2009) and out of this 2.49% is having one or other type of disability (census, 1998). Only 1% is in schools and schools of special needs.

School, family and community partnerships have strong ability to “weave together a critical mass of resources and strategies to enhance caring families and communities that support all youth and their families and enable success at their schools and beyond” (Mental Health in Schools Training and Technical Assistance Center, School-community Partnerships 1999).

According to Decker (2001) the far-reaching changes that have occurred in families, schools, and communities required educators to collaborate with families and communities if they are to be successful in their main mission of educating special needs children. The Community Schools initiatives had proven success in some of the GovernmentSpecialSchools in Pakistan but challenging in many especially in rural and backward areas. The schools with partnerships of children, parents, senior citizens and skilled people offered a blend of social services, recreation, educational and vocational activities, health education, medical referrals, social activities, and community meeting places in a safe environment (DGSE, 2002). In their 1998 survey, Melaville and Blank discovered that school-community initiatives across the country were “skyrocketing” and noted that these collaborations illustrate a “strong sense of direction and shared purpose” among participating schools and agencies, although they are very diverse in terms of design, management, and funding (Mental Health in Schools Training and Technical Assistance Center, Addressing Barriers, 1999, p. 6-7).

Henderson and Mapp (2002) said that many studies over the past two decades found “community organizing has contributed to the following changes in schools:

• Upgraded facilities;

• Improved school leadership and staffing;

• Higher quality learning programs;

• New resources and programs; and

• New funding for after-school programs and family supports.

The need to improve academic achievement of children with special needs—is one of the most persistent and challenging issues that our education system faces. The study looks at the roles of families and community can and do play in addressing that issue. The report also explored the bottle necks of the issue and suggested that school managements committees in collaboration with families and volunteers can work together and raise the students’ educational achievements.

In Pakistan there is two track system of education i.e. Special Education and General Education; there are very very few examples of Inclusive Education. In General and Special schools Parents Teachers Association exists but not working in real spirit. The reasons are many e.g. parents having no time and mostly are economical week and illiterate. In private schools such examples are working in real essence and having good results and out puts. In special schools Government tried to have school, family and community partnerships for the school improvement and creating awareness for the education of special needs children and involving parents to learn the skills to assist and trained their special needs children at home. The schools working on the partnerships showed encouraging and motivational results to other schools, community and families with special needs children. In Pakistan there was dire need to explore and high light such success stories to motivate and encourage other schools to have such partnerships. The researcher took this task as mission and first step to create awareness about school, family and community partnerships in special schools.

RESEARCHER OBJECTIVES:

The researcher aim was to promote the family, school and community partnership for the special needs children educational achievements. It is difficult to bring at once change in the attitudes of families and community towards the special needs children and their education. It was the same finding of another study conducted by the researcher in 2007-2008. The main finding of that study was when families, schools and communities all work together they strengthened the partnerships and make gains in students achievements. The objectives of this study were:

  • To study the families access to community resources.
  • To study the impact of family, school and community partnership on students’ achievements.
  • To explore the relationship between partnership and school improvement.
  • To study the families and community involvement in education of special needs children.
  • To compare the students achievements in the schools with and without family, school and community partnerships.

RESEARCH QUESTION:

How school, family and community partnership enhance or having positive impact on special needs children achievements?

METHODOLOGY

The study was descriptive in nature and survey method was adopted for the collection of data. The study was conducted in the city of Lahore. The researcher selected 5 schools with school, family and community partnership and 5 without such partnership. These five schools were dealing all types of children with special needs especially sever levels. Total 10 head teachers were selected as sample. Fifty teachers from the ten schools were randomly selected. The head teachers helped in selecting 20 parents or family members for interviews and it was convenient based sampling (Table 1). The researcher selected all the members representing the community in the School Management Committees of each school. The researcher contacted to the heads of the schools and briefed about the research and convinced them for the data collection. All the ethical aspects were ensured to the heads of the schools. The heads asked the parents and teachers for their consents. The tools for the data collection were questionnaire, interviews and documents (examination results). The questionnaire and interviews content was based on the partnership and students achievements. The researcher observed the formal and informal meetings among school, families and community stakeholders. In these observations the researcher concentrated on different aspects like how much they are keen, enthusiastic and interested in the efforts for uplifting the schools and in the arrangement of facilities for the special needs children and their schools. The observations were for 3 months and researcher observed 6 formal meetings and 2 informal meetings (functions and events). The questionnaires were distributed to the head teachers, parents, teachers and community stakeholders like political personnel, religious personnel, senior citizens and volunteers. Interviews were conducted with the stakeholders and children with special needs. The data was collected personally and analyzed for the results and findings.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS.

Parents, family and community involvement impacts student achievement

School, family and community involvement that linked to students’ learning has a greater effect on achievement than more general forms of involvement. The information collected through documents (students’ results) reflected that the schools with such partnerships have better results than those who don’t have. It was also found in interviews (content analysis) that the schools with partnerships used the expertise of parents and volunteers in different subjects like mathematics, reading and writing skills. The analysis also supported the assumption that students’ social development was good than the non-partnerships schools’ students.

Questionnaire data or information reflected that involvement was focused on improving achievement through support from the families and community. The involvement other purpose was to engage families and students in developing specific knowledge and skills e.g. mathematics, reading and writing.

Parents responded that the positive involvement of families linked with higher achievements. The parents who supported their special needs children by following the instructions given by their teachers also linked with higher achievements in academia (Table 2). Some parents said that sometime they requested the community people like volunteers and retired persons to support their children specifically in mathematics, social and writing skills.

Community and family involvement at schools has a protective effect. The more families and volunteers support the special needs children's learning and educational progress, the more their children need to do well in school and continue their education. The results showed that families especially parents often have positive influence on their children's learning due to feelings and accepting their responsibilities.

Volunteer teacher outreach to families related with the strong and consistent gains in student performance and achievements in reading (83%), writing (76%) and math (63%).

Head teachers responded on question that schools arranged trainings for the parents and volunteers for helping their children at home and schools. The training focused on social (78%), emotional (56%) and education needs of children. The schools results and students activities proved that the training of parents have positive impact. These were observed by the researcher in observations.

School, Families and community partnership improves school

In observation it was noted the there is a positive impact by engaging community and families through different functions and events. The difference between partnership and non-partnership schools was the social development of special needs children. The children in partnership schools were with better in social aspects (69%) like behaving at home and at schools (55%). They were more cooperative in the classroom and followed the instructions given by the teachers, volunteer teachers and their parents.

Schools with partnership made greater gains on board tests than schools without partnership. Also these schools very rare faced financial difficulties because they raised the funds (65%) from the community and political people. They also met with the government officials (66%) in the form of Parents Teachers Association and had their rights and solve the problems. The parents of special needs children in this PTA played very important role in fund raising when they discussed the matters with government officials.

In interviews some parents informed the partnership not only asked the funds or educational needs but also held schools accountability like results and management and finance.

Despite the evidence of the positive effects of school, family and community partnerships, its potential is still largely ignored in schools. Head teachers and teachers do not often encourage family and community involvement, and parents often do not participate when they are encouraged by the school management committees to do so (Table 3). There are numbers of barriers for the families to be involved in different activities of schools. It was investigated that why school environments discourage family (24%) and community involvement (47%), it was found from the data of teachers and head teachers that it is due to lack of adequate time and training of teachers and head teachers and a predominant schools culture in the schools that places little value on the views and participation of parents and community stakeholders. The same finding was in the report of National Task Force on School Readiness (1991).

The data collected from the families reflected that families are not equal in many ways e.g. educational background, culture, language, socio-economic status, spare time, job oriented, taboos and traditions. Even in the partnerships schools few have very low achievement rate as compared to non-partnerships. The reason why it was linked with the above mentioned aspects and diversities in the families. (Epstein, 1987)

It was also found through content analysis of interviews that negative attitudes toward family involvement commonly held by both teachers and parents. It is said by the Hoover, Dempsey and Sandler that teachers often believe that parents are neither interested in participating in their children's education nor qualified to do so (1997). The teachers working in partnerships schools were with less experience that’s why they lack confidence to work closely with families, especially if they have not had experience doing so. Teachers thought that family involvement can improve special needs student achievements; they had reservations about whether they could motivate parents to become more involved. (Epstein and Sanders, 2000)

Helping the School Leaders Engage Families & Communities

In Lahore there are schools working under the governance of the partnership of family, school and community and the main aim of these schools is to improve student achievement by assisting schools, families and communities to work together to improve learning for all children. It was suggested by the teachers and head teachers with parents of special needs children that there should be separate resource kits for the teachers, parents, head teachers and volunteers that each one can work for the same goal wherever they are, may be at school, at home or in the community to help the children.

The recommendations of the studies are very realistic, e.g. it was recommended that all parents should involve in their children’s learning-regardless of income, education or cultural backgrounds. There should be programs for parents considering the educational level, language, culture and home situations (socio-economic status). The PTA or school management committees must send materials to parents at home to support their children at home in their native language. It may be on audio, video or printed. The government should monitor the PTA activities regularly and if these are not in practice then action should be taken against head teachers and teachers. The families, volunteers and community should be involved in the planning of activities that may be social, cultural or educational. This was said by a parent that by this I felt it is my own work and I have to work hard to accomplish my task. The data reflected that the teachers are not competent that they can lead the activities; it was recommended that there should be in-service training to develop capacity of school staff to work with families. Parents complained or arguing in an informal function at school and said attitudes of school staff is not conducive that’s why I am not much interested to be part of such partnerships. The researcher recommended that trainings and head teachers’ instructions can improve the attitudes of school staff so that they recognize the advantages of teachers and parents working together.