Transcript Engaging Families and the Community to Address Disproportionality Presenters Julie Havill-Weems and Maura Robinson.

Engaging Families and the Community
to Address Disproportionality
Presenters
Julie Havill-Weems and Maura Robinson
Today We Will…
• Begin to learn how to communicate with
families and the community to develop a
relationship that addresses disproportionality
• Explore how the parent-professional
relationship impacts student outcomes
• Review frameworks for understanding family
values, beliefs, and actions
• Look at examples of practices to connect with
families and the community
Post-it!
• What would you like to know?
• Beginning your question with, “How to…”
write on a post-it what you would like to know
“how to” about family and community
engagement to address disproportionality.
• Include your contact info.
• Maura will collect post-its .
• We will review together.
Take a Gallery Walk
• Review the statements on the
charts around the room.
• Note your thoughts and reactions
to the statements
• We will discuss them when we regroup
Why Are So Many Minority Students in
Special Education?
• Beth Harry and Janette Klinger, 2006
• Studied 12 schools in one school district over 4 years: included; interviews
with parents, students, school and district personnel, observations of
classrooms and meetings, psych. evals., and home and community
settings, and review of relevant documents
• Found that…
“overrepresentation of minorities in special education
programs is caused by much more than the existence
of intrinsic or family based deficits. Indeed, the
perception that a child is disabled results from a
complex weave of widely varying beliefs, policies,
and practices at all levels – family and community,
classroom, school, district, state and federal
government, and society at large (p. 182).
The Posture of Cultural Reciprocity
Identify the cultural values that are
embedded in the professional
interpretation of a student’s
difficulties or in the recommendation
for service.
~ Kalyanpur and Harry 1999
The Posture of Cultural Reciprocity
Find out whether the family being
served recognizes and values these
assumptions and, if no, how their
view differs from that of the
professional.
~ Kalyanpur and Harry 1999
The Posture of Cultural Reciprocity
Acknowledge and give explicit respect
to any cultural difference identified,
and fully explain the cultural basis of
the professional assumptions.
~ Kalyanpur and Harry 1999
The Posture of Cultural Reciprocity
Through discussion and collaboration,
set about determining the most
effective way of adapting
professional interpretations or
recommendations to the value
system of this family.
~ Kalyanpur and Harry 1999
Decreasing Cross-Cultural Dissonance
“It is imperative that professionals recognize
that much of special education policy and
practice emerges from the prevailing values
and ideals of the dominant mainstream –
values that may not always be held by
minority cultures – so that they may decrease
the potential for cross-cultural dissonance.”
~ Kalyanpur and Harry 1999
Affixing Blame
“Too often, however, information about
inadequate family resources or family
instability is used to affix blame, creating an
adversarial climate between home and school.
Rather than simply blaming parents as the
cause of discipline problems, effective
disciplinary programs forge a partnership with
parents and the community.”
Skiba and Peterson, 2000
Parent Training
“Many school systems have attempted to institute
‘parent training’ programs for poor parents and
parents of color. While the intentions of these
programs are good, they can only truly be useful when
educators understand the realities with which such
parents must contend and why they do what they do.
Often, middle-class school professionals are appalled
by what they see of poor parents, and most do not
have the training or the ability to see past surface
behaviors to meanings behind parents’ actions.”
Lisa Delpit
Other People’s Children
Consider…
• What are the attitudes and assumptions
held by school staff about the families of
the students who are disproportionately
represented in your district?
• How do they expect families to act and
react?
• What do they think about families who
don’t act/react the way they expect?
Consider…
What structures, procedures, policies,
and/or practices are in place that are
barriers to communication and
relationship building with the
families of students who are
disproportionally represented
in your district ?
So, What Can You Do?
Develop a Posture of Cultural Reciprocity
among school personnel
Review structures, procedures, policies, and
practices to identify which are barriers to
connecting with families; revise as necessary
Focus on the development of individual
relationships among school staff and families
to combat negative assumptions and cultural
bias
Family Core Values – Acting & Reacting in Society
What I learned
from others
Bonding and
building
relationships
with others
Oral tradition
Value on Education
Humor
Faith and
Spiritualism
Music
Dance
Talents and gifts
each family
member has or
brings
Social Status
Fidelity
Responsibility
of power
Building learning skills of survival
Making sense of society
Use information to share with others
Information learned may not be
acquired information – (Old wives
tales).
Matriarchal
Patriarchal
What is a Family?
Expressing Personal Style
Being Assertive
Bouncing Back
What are the supports for families
in the community?
Survival skills
Dealing with
Forgivingness
Distrust of
mainstream
establishment
Past
experiences
with authority
figures
Who is the primary
care giver?
Allocentrism –
Collectivism
Disciplining Children
Individualism
Taking orders
© 2000 M. G. Robinson, Inc.
Parents and Teachers
Talking Together
• What do we want for our students?
(These are wishes and dreams)
• What do we need to do to get what
we want? (These are actions)
Anne T. Henderson, Karen L. Mapp, Vivian R. Johnson, and Don Davies. Beyond the Bake Sale, 2007.
Community Involvement
Community Involvement
Which leaders in our community can best
connect us to groups that work with minority
and low income parents, residents and
others?
In what ways will we ensure these leaders and
organizations are involved early on?
What considerations – time, expense,
outreach efforts – must be made to
accommodate participants?
Building Support for Better Schools. SEDL 2000 www.sedl.org
Harlem Children’s Zone Pipeline
www.hcz.org
Building Capacity – Check List
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Is the school’s racial and cultural diversity openly discussed at school
meetings and includes the staff, families and community?
Does the school’s curriculum reflect the cultures of families? Are books
and materials about families’ cultures in each classroom, library and
media center?
Are extra efforts are made to recruit staff, volunteers that reflect the
diversity in the cultures in the school?
Is the PTA/PTO dominated by any one group of parents? Do the officers
reflect the school’s diversity?
Do activities and events honor all the cultures in the school throughout
the year?
Do images around the school, including information going out in the
community, honor and represent the cultures in the school?
Are families’ cultural traditions, values, and practices discussed in class?
Is the student culture in the school setting considered? What is
acceptable behavior among the student population?
Improving Your Family &
Community Engagement Efforts
• In light of the information shared so far, let’s
review the “How to…” questions posted at
the beginning of the session.
• What ideas do you have to answer these
questions?
The Indiana Partnerships Center
A Parent and Information Resource Center
• Parent Information and Resource Centers (PIRCs) support the No Child Left
Behind (NCLB) Act and its most important goals: parent involvement and
school accountability.
Offers Schools and Districts…
• The Indiana Academy for Parent and School Leadership - The purpose of the
Indiana Academy for Parent and School Leadership (Academy) is to grow
leaders, who work to improve family, school, and community partnerships
for student success.
• Workshops including:
– Fathers Too, The Right Question Project, Books on Board, Developing Parent
Centers, Family Math and Science, Family Literacy and more
• Newsletters and materials to support meaningful connections with
families and the community
• www.fscp.org; 1-866-391-1039
References and Resources
• De Anda, D. (1984). Parent education, cultural pluralism, and public
policy: The uncertain connection. IN R. Haskins & Adams (Eds.),
Parent education and public policy (pp. 331-345).
• Sue, D.W., & Sue, D. (1990). Counseling the culturally different (2nd
ed.). New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
• Wasserman, G.A. Rauh, V.A., Garcia-Castro, M., Necos, B. (1990).
Psychosocial attributes and life experiences of disadvantaged
minority mothers: Age and ethnic variations. Child Development,
61, 566-580
• Kalyanpur, M. & Harry, B. (1999). Culture in Special Education:
Building Reciprocal Family-Professional Relationships. Paul H.
Brookes Publishing Co. Baltimore, Maryland.
References and Resources
• Harry, B. & Klinger, J. (2006) Why Are So Many Minority
Students in Special Education? Teachers College Press, New
York.
• Henderson, A. T., Mapp, K. L., Johnson, V.R., & Davies, D.
(2007). Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to
Family-School Partnerships. The New Press, New York.
• Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. Building
Support for Better Schools: Seven Steps for Hard-to-Reach
Communities. www.sedl.org.
• Delpit, Lisa.(2006) Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict
in the Classroom. (2nd ed.) The New Press, New York.
• Indiana’s Vision for RTI: Family and Community
Partnerships http://www.doe.in.gov/indianarti/partnerships.html