Engaging students and helping them learn can be a difficult task for teachers. Doing it without the support of others makes it even more overwhelming, so it is important for educators to involve parents in their children's education. Educators and leaders in Canada have been looking for new ways to make parental involvement the standard in their schools.
In Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, parents of students at the Esther Starkman School and the Ellersie School receive monthly online updates on student progress. Administrators at these schools scrapped the traditional three-times-a-year report cards for this model to help parents get a better grasp of what their children are learning and how well they are doing with the material.
The teachers use an online program called SchoolZone that is updated every four weeks with progress reports and a rundown of what the current and upcoming lessons will be based on. Parents can read the reports and find out how their children are doing; if there are any problems, parents can work with the teachers on timely interventions for their struggling children.
"Good news, bad news, doesn't matter. There should be no such thing as a surprise," said Esther Starkman principal Greg Kushnir in an interview with theEdmonton Journal. "What struck me as a parent for the first time with a child going to school is how little I knew about what was going on."
Administrators hope that this pilot program will help students, teachers, and parents improve the learning process and keep students from falling behind in their studies.
Another problems facing parents in Canada is the high dropout rate. This issue is especially alarming in the province of Quebec, where it has caught the attention of Premier Jean Charest. Charest has called for parents to become more engaged with their children's education and lives to help keep them in school.
"Every day, they should be asking their children how things are going in school and what they are doing," Charest said of parents. "The parents are the first people who have a role in regard to the success of their kids in school."
According to the Montreal Gazette, only 61 percent of students in Quebec earn diplomas in the traditional five years of study. The figure rises to only 71 percent after seven years. Charest has set a goal that at least 80 percent of students will get a diploma within five years of secondary education.
"Everything starts with the parents," Charest said. "It isn't rocket science. We follow the example of our parents."
