Making Parents Feel Welcome In Your School Every Day

Most High Schools invite their parents into the school building 4 - 6 times each year. Once for "Meet the Teacher Night", a few times for Music Recitals and Plays, and at the end of the year for Graduation. The rest of the time, parents only come up to school when their presence is requested by a teacher or counselor or in an emergency.

I have found that providing our Parents Association with their own office has greatly increased our ability to work together and has broken down many barriers that existed in the past. Now before you start sending me a list of reasons why this is not a good idea, let me explain.

Providing an office does not mean allowing parents to have free run of the school building. Nor does it mean that they can stop in an see their children's teachers whenever they feel like it. The office that I have provided is 50 feet from my office in the front of the building. Parents who staff the Parent, Teachers Association office (P.T.A) must sign in when they arrive at school like any other visitor. They also wear Visitor I.D. tags to identify them to the rest of the staff. Their movement is generally confined to their office and the General Office.

We have found that having parents in my school has a calming influence on student behavior especially between instructional periods. I have also made use of my P.T.A. parents whenever a new family arrives at our school. While the new student is going through the intake process my P.T.A. representative provides the new parents with community information and makes them feel comfortable. This is also a great time to get the new parents to join the P.T.A. This arrangement has also been very helpful when I want to get accurate information out to my community members in a hurry.

When we welcome parents into our schools on an ongoing basis, the term "stakeholder" takes on a whole new meaning in the discussion of school improvement. With this arrangement, parents tend to have a more positive attitude toward their school and are more supportive of the entire school community.