The Importance of Parent Involvement

In order for students to grow at school, they must also receive the help they need at home. But how do we ensure that our students are getting the guidance necessary to achieve success both in academics and extracurricular activities? Highlighting the importance of parent involvement at your school is the first step to making certain that students (no matter their age) can receive the comprehensive guidance they need.

So why is parental involvement so important? A research synthesis from 2002^[1] found that the benefits of parent involvement include the following:

• • Students with involved and engaged parents are more likely to earn higher grades
• • These students are also more likely to be pass courses and earn credits for their classes
• • Their attendance is stronger and more regular than other students
• • They also tend to have more social skills and are more likely to have good behavior

But there’s more to ensuring that parents are involved in their children’s learning than just a parents group for your school. The National Education Association offers a number of suggestions^[2] for other ways to get parents engaged in the school, including:

• • Helping them to set goals with their children and reward the meeting of those goals
• • Providing access to academic sources to keep track of their work and their progress
• • Setting up a parent portal that they can use for reference to their child’s grades, comments from teachers, etc.
• • Ensuring that teachers develop appropriate relationships with parents

These benefits and strategies show both the importance of parent involvement and also some of the easy ways you can ensure that your students have engaged parents (and legal guardians). To find out if the parent involvement at your school is benefiting students, check out our parent survey.

[1] Henderson, Anne T. and Karen L. Mapp. “A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement.” SEDL. Retrieved from http://www.sedl.org/connections/resources/evidence.pdf on March 16, 2016.

[2] García, Lily Eskelsen and Otha Thornton. “The Enduring Importance of Parental Involvement.” National Education Assocation. Retrieved from http://neatoday.org/2014/11/18/the-enduring-importance-of-parental-involvement-2/ on March 16, 2016.