Denver parents will have a bigger say in school policy, and could eventually train other parents to help with homework, under the “strategic plan” being developed by senior Denver Public Schools officials.
Details of the plan, scheduled for release by the end of the month, are not yet public, but those involved in creating it say they believe it will, among other things, greatly strengthen parents’ roles in schools.
Teachers, for instance, could be asked to have more frequent parent-teacher conferences, and schools could be nudged to be more inviting to the community. And volunteers could be paired with individual students who don’t have a good role model in the home, said Happy Haynes, assistant to the superintendent for community partnerships.
DPS Superintendent Michael Bennet declined to comment about the contents of the strategic plan Friday but said parental involvement will be a part of it.
“It’s apparent to everyone in the district that more parental involvement is going to help achievement in Denver,” Bennet said. “We want to find different ways for them to be involved.”
He and other senior administration officials have been working on the plan for three months. It will be a sweeping effort to reform the district that includes developing short- and long-term academic goals, implementing high school reform and altering literacy and English-language programs.
The parental component of the plan probably will call for hundreds of parents to be involved in an “empowerment council.” This group would help the district with the “parent perspective” and act as a sounding board for district leaders, Haynes said.
These parents may eventually motivate other parents to get involved.
“I don’t know whether we’re talking about going into homes,” Haynes said. “We’re going to have to use a variety of strategies to communicate with the parents.”
Haynes also is trying to marshal volunteers to work with students as role models when a parent isn’t around.
“We just want someone to call for every single student in this district,” she said.
Parent involvement is a problem at some Denver schools. Principals often struggle to get parents in for parent-teacher conferences. Some provide free dinners as a lure; others withhold report cards and make parents come in person to pick them up at the school.
Sandy Baca-Sandoval said that is because parents – especially Spanish-speakers or those in poorer neighborhoods – are intimidated.
“The school administration needs to stop doing what they’ve always done,” said Baca-Sandoval, who directs the community center at Horace Mann Middle School. “They invite them only when they want them. You can’t just call parents in once or twice a year and expect them to come.”
Leaders at Horace Mann Middle brought in 600 parents for parent-teacher conferences this year. That happened only after they invited parents in to help monitor the hallways and give truancy slips to students consistently arriving late, Baca-Sandoval said.
“We’ve had parents go to other parents and say, ‘Why is your kid always late, and what can we do to help you?”‘ she said.
DPS’s efforts to get parents more involved in schools – a requirement of the federal No Child Left Behind Act – has “tailed off” in the past couple of years, said Dorothy Gottlieb, deputy commissioner for the state Department of Education. Gottlieb monitors the DPS’s accreditation, making sure officials are minding state and federal policies.
Urging teachers to do more home visits is OK, said teachers union president Kim Ursetta, as long as it is not mandatory.
“As long as it’s within our established workday,” she said. “There’s more and more on us, and they don’t take anything off our plates.”
Staff writer Allison Sherry can be reached at 303-820-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com.
