The Family Friendly Principal

IDRA recently outlined its principles for family leadership in education that have been basis of our work with families, schools and community. As the lead for parent involvement these principals are very much also mine. A school principal that models and carries out these principles creates a family-friendly school we would want to document, spot-light and promulgate as a laudable and replicable example. These principles are broad statements with multiple ways of carrying them out. The actions and behaviors are measured organically and holistically by the results with children, families, staff and teachers. There is no singular template or a singular management style for achieving a family friendly school. I can nevertheless point to the campus leader who has been critical to fostering that wonderful result.

The principles applied to principals

1. Families can be their children’s strongest advocates.
Our first premise draws on the potential that all families have in speaking for, defending and supporting their children. The concept of parents as advocates has been difficult to capture in the research and literature, especially connecting it to student achievement. It is key to our vision. The principal holding this premise does not have an unreal, romanticized view of the reality of our families. She/he does not ignore that there are dysfunctional families in all classes, races and communities. Nevertheless, her/his view of families is that each must be approached with respect and high expectations.

2. Families of different races, ethnicity, language and class are equally valuable. Each group has assets, traditions and a language that is worthy of respect. The principal’s experience has shown that when this principle is present and evident in the outreach and work done with families, there is a marked increase in the amount and quality of families’ engagement with their children’s schools and education.

3. Families care about their children’s education and are to be treated with respect, dignity and value. The principal is aware that every major survey conducted in the Latino community has placed education as the number one issue of concern or very close to the top. Surveys, interviews and conversations with parents of all races, classes and national origin have reinforced this almost universal concern that families have for their children’s education and the desire to be treated with respect. She/he acts on this knowledge.

4. Within families, many individuals play a role in children’s education. The principal acknowledges, accepts and respects whoever the key caretakers of children beyond the genetic parents. The combination of all who live within a home are important influences on children and the principal attests that they can be a collective force for creating excellent schools.

5. Family leadership is most powerful at improving education for all children when collective efforts create solutions for the common good. The family friendly principal looks beyond the individualistic, charismatic leader model, agreeing that the lone leader focus it is too narrow and does not sustain communities, families and excellent schools over time. As wonderful as the neighborhood mom in sneakers haranguing the school board about a serious concern is, the principal knows that our neighborhood schools need a network of families, co-supporting and co-creating action that improves schools. She/he realizes that our neighborhoods need a network of families who continue to support their neighborhood schools as each generation of children flows through them. The family friendly principal welcomes collective efforts that are nourished by the rich & deep democratic roots and sustained with peer compassion among families. She/he acknowledges that child rearing is a difficult and isolating responsibility, so she/he facilitates cooperation and revolving spokespersons so that when there is individual burnout, others from the network keep up the good effort.

6. Families, schools and communities, when drawn together, become a strong, sustainable voice to protect the rights of all children.
The family friendly principal accepts that schools must be transformed; that for positive change to be lasting in the school requires internal and external leadership; that when the internal suasion of the principal coupled with the external support and strength of the parents, there is solid foundation for the innovation to be sustained. The principal truly believes and practices the expectation that with her/his leadership from within the school in welcoming collaboration and enthusiastic connection with families and with the broader community from without, all together can achieve the cherished dream – excellent schools for all children.

Equal air time (but you have to be online)

I'm blogging at a very interesting site http://socialvoice.liveworld.com/index.jspa. Another blogger, much more experienced, is Judith's blog: Through the virtual looking glass - online focus groups She's been following online focus groups and assessing respondent's reaction to the process. One critical finding is that some participants feel that they have more space to be listened to. I'm a teacher/trainer/facilitator and creating spaces that give participants equal air-time is a constant challenge: allowing those who are under-participating to have the opportunity to express their opinions and toning down those who are dominating the conversation. The online focus group context seems to allow for more equitable participation, but only if you are able to get online, and are literate enough in the language of the dialogue, and have the keyboarding skills necessary to type in your opinions.
So, I'm very supportive of the equity in participation for those who have the access, the skills and the literacy necessary.
I'm still going to depend on face-to-face interviews and discussions because there are many, many poor families that don't meet those minimum criteria and those families most definitely need to be encouraged to talk and give their opinions. I'm working on encouraging their children who have much more extensive contact with and use of technology in school to participate in online focus groups because they also need to be heard as a student group.

I will also contiue to figure out how to bring technology to communities that don't have easy access withoutseeing technology as the Good Ship Lollipop.

It's really about the STUDENTS

Let not young souls be smothered out before they do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride.*

I was going to say 'kids' but that's somewhat adultist...children doesn't usually bring up the image of older teenagers and young adults, so it's students, for now.
It really is about them. You families (adults, parents, older care-takers, legal guardians) just happen to be the ones who will most care and be in the strongest position to defend, encourage, believe in, and hope the best for the students.
I state this because the blog is titled Parent Leadership in Education. I'm not really a parent advocate, per se, but from a practical organizing point of view, have to go with the line of least resistance.
Families are not perfect, but then neither are children. I'm a child advocate because that is the specific group I have made my vocation and my work. It could have been workers or the environment or any other cause that I consider important and vital to a healthy society. I just decided.
As I support parents in having and creating the best possible neighborhood public schools for their children, I'm not romanticizing or idealizing families. None are perfect and few are candidates for sainthood by RC Vatican standards, but they are the ones I will defend and support.Too much is said against them. Even as Cosby and others support a logical and rational taking on of responsibility, I still see institutions, specifically schools, thinking and saying bad things about groups of families and children.

"It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull, its poor are limp, ox-like and leaden-eyed."*

So, to help swing the pendulum toward the other side, to balance out the overwhelming blaming of 'those' families and children, I'll raise the banner high and scream (though it might sound like a strange croak coming from an old geezer) Let's value parents...er...families, who'll be the loudest cheerleaders shouting
"Hooray for the children" er...students.

*Vachel Lindsay's "The Leaden Eyed". One of my favorite poems in the first Junior English textbook I used in San Felipe High School in the mid 60s.

Outreach to Latino Families (continued)

The problem with communication ... is the illusion that it has been accomplished. George Bernard Shaw

About four weeks ago I reported on an incident at a PTA conference:

One incident stays with me. I had made a comment to the group at large about sensitivity to families that held two or more jobs, single parent homes and families that spoke a language other than English. At the end of the session quite a few participants came up to me to ask for contact information and also to ask questions. A Latina local PTA officer asked me about Spanish speaking mothers who she would see on campus joining their children for lunch or taking their children to school and picking them up in the afternoon, but she would not see them at PTA meetings. Yet they didn't seem to be easily accessible for her to invite to participate.

I counseled that she establish a relationship with them, initially just greeting and asking how their family was doing...how their children were doing in school. I advised that she hold back on recruiting them to be school volunteers or to become PTA members.
I said: Instead of approaching them with a 'sales pitch' become an acquaintance, concerned about the education of their children, and eventually a trusted friend. I peppered my conversation with Spanish and gave snippets of how I establish that kind of relationship with the families I come in contact with. She didn't speak much Spanish with me but clearly understood everything I said. Even if her Spanish was not as strong as her own parents', she obviously had enough facility with the language to communicate with the parents she wanted to connect with on her campus.
"Buenos días señora ¿como esta? ¿Como están los niños? (Good morning, ma'am, how are you? How are the children?).
I continued: As you establish these 'qualitative' relationships, then you can identify the 'live wires', the ones that are centers of communication within their own social circles. As each of these "emerging leaders" becomes an active participant, volunteer and PTA member, (and in time, if you persist, they will) she will bring others with her and also take information to many who might not ever attend a PTA meeting but are acutely interested in the education of their children and want the information the school can offer through these 'intermediaries'."

New incident, different cast of characters, same lesson:Last week I was conducting training of trainers in south Texas for a group of parent involvement specialists. On the day that I was setting up for the training, I visited a large room, very welcoming with smiling hosts, flowers and many service providers awaiting parents to come in and select supplemental education services for their children. The coordinator told me that over 1500 packages of information had been sent to families that qualified for the services.
The next day I asked how many showed up. Response: less than twenty. The frowns and under-the-breath comments seemed to blame the families. The coordinator told me she didn't know what to do because she had done what the state agency required: that each family receive a complete list of all the service providers.

What was learned? To me it is obvious. Most families, across class, ethnicity, language and neighborhood will not pay much attention to a large, multi-page mailing.

If only 50 families had been contacted personally and explained what was available, there would have been far better results.

It seems that personal, intentional outreach is still too difficult a task.

I certainly have my work cut out for me, as a director of a Parent Information Resource Center. In Texas!