Parent Involvement Summit
ORLANDO- Fifty people got the opportunity to participate in the first
national Parent Involvement Summit. The theme was “No Parent
Left Behind” The event was held April 25 in Orlando at the beautiful
Renaissance Orlando Airport Hotel. Attendees included 25 parents, teachers
and administrators from participating HIP Schools in NY City. All were
top users of the HIP Schools system and attended on scholarships provided by
the Summit sponsor, Keys Technology Group, Inc. Other participants
included parents, teachers and educators from Alabama, Georgia and
Central Florida.
A “get acquainted” reception was held the evening before
the Summit. Attendees dined, chatted and listened to the sounds
of a jazz trio. Most of them had never met. However, they
recognized names
from the competitive HIP “Top Users” lists for parents,
teachers and principals that are distributed biweekly. It
was amusing to see parent involvement in schools being
addressed in such a positive manner.
Brady Keys, Jr., the founder of the HIP Schools program gave beautiful “Outstanding
Achiever” medallions to the parent, teacher and principal who
were the top users in their categories as of April 18th. He relayed
that the big monetary award would not be given out until June 2005;
therefore, all of them still had a chance to be the top user in their
division.
Bill Archer of HIP Schools gave a presentation on “HIP
Schools Key Findings on Parental Involvement” He
pointed out that the findings were based on the four years
of hands-on experience by HIP
Schools and not the results of research. Archer summarized
that parent
involvement in education is affected by what he called the 3 A’s;
• Attitude- parents feelings about their role in their children’s
education
• Availability- the time parents have to get involved.
• Ability- parents feeling competent enough to help their children
with schoolwork.
He concluded that the HIP Schools system is designed to help
parents to overcome the 3 A’s barrier and make Homework Help easier.
Ruth Haniff, a principal of an Orlando elementary school gave a presentation
on how she raised her school’s grade under the No Child Left
Behind Act from an “F” to an “A” in two years. “Parent
involvement was the key”, she said.
Miss America 2004, Ericka Dunlap was the featured lunch speaker. She
stated that her mother, who was in attendance, took her to fashion
shows, talent shows and modeling contest and played a very important
role in her becoming Miss America. “My mother would not let me
get away with anything, and was always there for me,” she pointed
out. To the delight of everyone, Miss America 2004 took individual
pictures with each attendee which they got copies to take home. Mr.
Keys gave Miss Dunlap an Outstanding Achiever medallion.
Len Burnett of HIP Schools introduced a "Guide for Designing
a Parent Involvement Program" (PIP). He said that the guide is necessary
because school have left parent involvement up to individual parents
and teachers working independently of one another without concrete
goals or directions. Burnett emphasized that each school needed a comprehensive
Parent Involvement Program “A comprehensive PIP requires vision,
partnership, cooperation and accountability and this guide will helps
schools to design a program to meet these criteria,” he said.
The guide will be made available to schools throughout the country,
Mr. Keys conducted a Q & A session to conclude the Summit.
He thanked everyone for coming and said that it was obvious
that they had learned a lot about parent involvement through Helping Involve Parent
Schools. He declared that he would hold regional summits to
educate parents, teachers
and other school officials on this subject. Hopefully targeting
adolescent and parental involvement in
the near future aswell.“The
first regional Summit will be in NY City in June, 2005,”he
stated. “Our
goal is No Parent Left Behind”, Mr. Keys concluded.
|
