1. ECE 497 Child Development Capstone Course Instructor: Karen Foster
Parent Presentation
Shelly Vaughn
ECE 497 Child Development Capstone Course
Instructor: Karen Foster
September 29,2014

2. Elmhurst, Illinois FARMING
Higley High School:  Higley High School is located in Elmhurst, Illinois. Elmhurst is a medium-sized city with a strong farming community. The school has a population of 1,500 students in the 9th through 12th grades. At Higley High School, 22% of the students are eligible for free and/or reduced lunch, and 1% of the students are second language learners. The majority of the students at Higley High School are white (63%). Twenty-two percent of students are Hispanic, 6% Black, 5% Asian, and 4% American Indian. (Berk, 2013)
Elmhurst, Illinois
FARMING

3. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AGE CHILDREN
Elementary School age children at the most impressive and they are eager to learn. The ages between six and fourteen, the middle age of childhood then going into adolescence, are the most important developmental times that these children will go through, it gives them the sense of their own identity. They will work towards the next step in life; adulthood, by becoming competent, self-aware, independent and will be curious of the world around them.
Best Buds
Working hard! Inseparable
Troubled
friends

4. My role as a Child Development Professional would be to work hard at making children comfortable in their own skin. Let them know they are important as the next person. Include their parents in their child’s everyday life away from home. Children love attention and like to talk about their lives, so that includes being a great listener. Teach them the roles of learning, and making sure they understand learning is an important role of life. As a role in Child Development and as a Professional I would help in preventing and responding to child abuse and neglect. I will become knowledgeable on different family structures, such as divorce, single parent, same sex and grandchildren living with grandparents. I will offer sources within their family structure, so they can understand and seek help with their situation. I will support and supply different material for language, lack in skills, and help them perform in any way possible. I will involve myself with parents to let them know their child is very important to me. I value their learning and growth. To let parents know I am available for them in any situation, they feel I need to be. I will let the parents know I will work with their child, so they can succeed to their fullest.

5. Rationale Presentation:
Regardless of student’s age, abilities, gender, SES, or ethnicity, parent involvement in education--keeping tabs on the child’s progress, communicating often with teachers, and ensuring that the child is enrolled in challenging, well-taught classes—promotes academic motivation and achievement. (Hill & Taylor, 2004; Hill & Tyson, 2009; Jeynes, 2005)
This presentation represents reasoning and support for parents, school and their community. Getting involved with your child’s teacher during and after school hours will give a parent the satisfaction that your child is being taught and learning what is needed. Getting children involved in church and their community, by volunteering, and out of school activities also gives them a boost in everyday life and will give them a head start in the world. If everyone joins in together and works as one there will always be help and understanding. It is important for parents to know what their child is involved in, where they are for their well being. This creates a great model for children to stay out of trouble and make better grades in school.
The model, called the Academic Parent Teacher Team (APTT), replaces the traditional parent-teacher conference with three group meetings throughout the year, where teachers meet at once with all parents in their classroom. Each parent is provided with a folder of their child’s performance indicators. Teachers then provide an in-depth coaching session on how to interpret this data based on overall classroom performance, school benchmarks, and state standards. Parents are provided with strategies and tools to help support learning at home. And together, parents and teachers set goals for their students, individually and as a class. (ed.gov/oese-news/innovative-model-parent-teacher-partnerships)

6. The Mesosystem
Mesosystem involves the relationships between the microsystem's way of life in a person, meaning your family life could spill into your school life. If a child does not have the proper care, is always shown negativity, low self-esteem, this could carrying into the classroom making them feel awkward, and with drawl for peers. A child’s academic progress depends not just on activities that take place in the classrooms but also on parent involvement in school life and on the extent to which academic learning is carried over into home. (Gershoff & Aber, 2006)

7. Epstein’s Involvement:
His involvement was to bring educators, schools , family and the communities together. He has six different types of practices for partnerships. Each has their own type of challenges that must be met, and each requires basic principles for involvement. This all leads to results for the teachers, students and their families.
Each type of involvement includes many different practices of partnership. Each type has particular challenges that must be met in order to involve all families, and each type requires redefinitions of some basic principles of involvement. Finally, each type leads to different results for students, families, and teachers. ( Epstein, Coats, Salinas, Sanders & Simon, 1997) "The key to increase student achievement and to ensure more equitable practices in schools is to increase parent and community involvement" (Holcomb-McCoy, 2007, p. 66). It is our contention that school-family-community partnerships are an ideal approach to support the growing needs of our nation's students.

8. The Six Types of Involvement:
Parenting: This is to assist families on how to parent. Teach child rearing skills Understand change and adolescent development, to assist in school to understand families with concerns.
This also gives the students the supervision they need to learn respect. It will give them the knowledge to be a positive person, teach them good habits, and believe in themselves. It will teach them they have chores everyday, homework and to get involved in other activities. It will teach them they have to go to school and to strive for a good attendance, that school is very important in their life ahead of them.
To implement help with families is to suggest work shops, meetings and information for others to learn different cultures. helping families (e.g., parents and extended family members) to become aware and knowledgeable about child development, and providing resources that enable them to establish home environments that can enhance student learning. (Steen, 2010)

9. Communications: To stay in contact with families about school activities, programs, meeting and to inform parent of their child’s progress. Making sure the communication continues with follow up after regular meetings. Provide parents with daily or weekly folders for parents to better understand what is going on in their child’s classroom, allowing for reviews or comments. Provide report cards and conferences with parents to suggest improvements of grades if needed.
Implement by having a language translator if needed. Effective, appropriate, relevant, two-way contact about school events (e.g., open houses, conferences, testing workshops), student academic or personal development and progress, and/or insight (e.g., success or challenges) within the home environment. (Steen, 2010)

10. Volunteering: To teach students and families to get involved and volunteer recruit in training and work for school programs. This teaches children to get involved and learn to communicate with adults. Take advantage of tutoring if needed. It can teach them how important a teachers job really is.
Implement by supporting goals in school, work and learning different developments within their community and other homes. Organizing and participating in activities initiated by school personnel (e.g., parent-teacher association) or generated by community members aimed at supporting students and school programs, such as service-learning projects, Big Brothers Big Sisters programs, or violence-reduction assemblies. (Steen, 2010)

11. Learning at Home: Get parents involved in their child’s activities, homework and other curriculum activities with decision making. This will help them gain skills, give them the ability to work harder and make better test scores, and this is all linked to doing homework and classwork to their best of their ability. With this type of help towards students it will educate them to have a positive attitude towards school.
Implement as an awareness as a child becomes a better listener and include others from a different culture. Providing information to parents and families about school procedures (e.g., homework expectations, grading scales) in order to help them augment their children's academic activities. (Steen, 2010)

12. Decision Making: Involve parents in school decisions with PTA/PTO, school councils, organizations, and committees.
This will teach children how to make decisions, to share their views.
Implement, by including students in decision making groups, offer training to implement in leaderships. including parents and family members from all backgrounds as representatives and leaders on school committees.(Steen,2010)

13. Collaborating with Community: Gather and distribute to the families: services, students, agencies and other groups that may provide services to the community. Teaches them to learn about other cultures, social support groups and community Health. Increased skills and talents through enriched curricular and extracurricular experiences. (Berk,2013)
Implement students with different cultures outside of the schools. Identifying and integrating resources, services, and other assets from the community to help meet the needs of school personnel, students, and their families.(Steen,2010)

14. References:
Eldridge, D., & Wong, V. (2005). Clumped and isolated trees influence soil nutrient levels in an Australian temperate box woodland. Plant & Soil, 270(1/2), doi: /s
Berk, L.E.(2013) Child development. Boston: Pearson Education.
Epstein, J.L., Coates, L., Salinas, K.C., Sanders, M.G., & Simon, B.S. (1997). School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

15. References:
Griffin, D., & Steen, S. (2010). School-Family-Community Partnerships: Applying Epstein's Theory of the Six Types of Involvement to School Counselor Practice. Professional School Counseling, 13(4),