Recommendations and Suggestions on Parental Involvement

1
Recommendations and Suggestions on Parental
Involvement

• First Nations Education Council
• 19th First Nations Education Conference
• Thursday, April 30, 2009

2

• Recommendations and Suggestions made by Parents
  during the Roundtable

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Recommendations and Suggestions made by Parents
during the Roundtable

• Encourage the participation of Elders.
• Give parents a role in decision making.
• Organize forums and meetings where parents are
  invited to discuss on different aspects relating
  to education in their community.
• Have a resource person in charge of establishing
  links between school and community.

4
Recommendations and Suggestions made by Parents
during the Roundtable

• Give parents different options for participating
  in school life.
• Offer training and information by using different
  means of communication (videoconferencing,
  community radio, workshops, etc.)
• Develop a communication plan and strategy to
  promote school success in the community.
• Encourage parents and school employees to become
  ambassadors of the school services and successes.
  

5
Recommendations and Suggestions made by Parents
during the Roundtable

• Provide information tools and training for
  parents (Parent newsletters, brochures, etc.)
• Establish a regional parents committee
  (national?, international?).
• FNEC should communicate the services it can offer
  to parents.
• Develop an online communication tool for parents.
  

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• Additional recommendations made in Plenary

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Additional recommendations made in Plenary

• Involve the community radio in the parents
  committee to better spread messages and diffuse
  information.
• Nominate a parent/class to obtain optimal
  participation from the parents committee.
• Cancel bingos and state the reasons (i.e. to
  explain the importance of parental involvement).

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Additional recommendations made in Plenary

• Find ways to spread the message to parents that
  discipline is something that is learnt at home.
  In that way, teachers will effectively be able to
  invest their full time in teaching, and not in
  imposing discipline.
• Find and appoint people in each of the community
  clans to become ambassadors in diffusing
  information to the parents.

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Additional recommendations made in Plenary

• Open the parents committees to the extended
  family of the child (grandparents, brothers,
  sisters, uncle, aunt, etc...).
• Open the parents committees equally to those who
  also have at heart the education of the children.
• The community could also offer training courses
  to young parents in order to sensitize them to
  child and juvenile realities.

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Additional recommendations made in Plenary

• Encourage schools to organize activities which
  draw children and their families closer (e.g.
  exposition of creations made by the children).
• Question not only parents on solutions to help
  the youth, but also young people on how they
  would like to receive help from their parents.