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Educators Struggle With Parent Involvement In L.A. Preschool Program

Celeste Alvarez |
April 11, 2014 | 3:36 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

Parents join their children in class for a holiday story. (Woodleywonderworks/Flickr)
Parents join their children in class for a holiday story. (Woodleywonderworks/Flickr)

Parent involvement should be at the forefront of early childhood education, at least according to some Los Angeles educators.

Teaching up to 36 students aged 3 to 4-years-old, Dolores Garcia, a teacher at San Miguel Elementary School, has seen first-hand how successful students and schools can become when parents make the effort to get involved in their child’s education.

“First, parents are reluctant to join in because they don’t know what to expect, but once they do they really enjoy it,” Garcia said.

“It becomes a chance for them to really help their child prepare for school outside the class.”

Working in the School Readiness Language Development Program, Garcia is able to see the difference in her students’ comprehension skills with and without parent involvement following program cutbacks by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The free, preschool language program helps prepare students, especially those who are from low-income or bilingual families, to develop academic readiness skills. Prior to its current incarnation, the program, originally created in the 1970’s, provided educational services to both children and their parents, with mandatory parent meetings and classroom volunteering required monthly.

“Parents had the chance to learn about things like nutrition, health and hygiene during parent sessions while keeping up with their students education progress,” Garcia said. “It was a good educational component for parents in the community.”

Following negotiations with LAUSD and protest marches by parents and teachers, SRLDP received its first round of cutbacks in 2011. Those cuts led to the dismantling of the parent portion of the program and a new curriculum with larger class sizes that ran for five days a week. The new schedule differed from the original program, which was only four days a week and allowed teachers to prep for classes on Friday.

Other SRLDP teachers like Montara Avenue Elementary School’s Silvia Leon, also began to notice the consequences of the district’s decision.

“Kids received more instruction, but at the cost of losing parents being co-educators at home and parent involvement,” Leon said. “People don't understand the importance of parent involvement, partnership.”

Leon explained how she has had to make home visits when she becomes concerned about something not quite right with a student. Since parent meetings are no longer available to make connections between families and educators, Leon and several other SRLDP teachers are finding their own ways to get parents involved.

“Fifty percent has been cut (from the program) in past six years,” Leon said. Every year we are on the chopping block and we have to go talk to the board with parents, have rallies, demonstrations and involve parents. I'm so tired.”

Teachers are also feeling more pressure to prepare students for a more challenging future, as kindergarten is now being considered the new first-grade by some researchers, leading SRLDP educators looking toward parents for more presence in their child’s education from the start.

“I think parent involvement now really opens the door for parents to stay involved in their child’s learning as they go on to different grades,” Garcia said.

“Their parents are losing out on parent education time and this time is critical because parents need to learn how to help their children learn at home and learn the importance of being involved,” Leon said.

South Gate educators are not alone, as some research suggest parent involvement can lead to students attending school regularly, earning higher grades and test scores, enrolling in higher-level programs, developing better social skills and more likely to graduate to go on to postsecondary education, according the National Education Association.

Garcia says she still follows the spirit of the original SRLDP, and although parents are no longer expected to be in the classroom, she still has a handful that come in to volunteer daily.

“I don’t know what's going to happen next year. We heard through the grapevine that they were going to change our curriculum again, but we just don’t know,” Garcia said.

Educators are still in the process of negotiating with the local school district for at least one Friday a month devoted to parent education, but no solution has yet been reached.

 

Editor-in-Chief Brianna Sacks contributed to this story.

Staff Reporter Celeste Alvarez can be reached here or follow her on Twitter.



 

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