A study of the relationship between parental opportunities for and management of children's peer interactions and the social competence of their child suggests important links between parental opportunities provided for play and the peer social system. (JOW)

The article stresses the value of recognizing that the most important educational resource is the human resource of teachers, parents, and children and of involving these people in all aspects of the special educational program. (DB)

With adequate guidance and support, parents can be surprisingly effective helpers in a schoolwide writing assessment. Allentown (Pennsylvania) School District relied on parent volunteers to evaluate the overall effectiveness of ninth graders' essays describing a meaningful experience. Because parents' expectations were unbiased, they found…

Schools enjoying strong parental support have parental-involvement programs in place and actively seek to involve parents. Such schools usually have a staff member, frequently a parent, whose task is to establish, manage, and maintain successful engagements among individuals, groups of parents, and the school. Darien, Connecticut's innovative high…

A New Jersey high school administrator explains how he kept the school board from slashing the educational technology budget. A committee of administrators, teachers, parents, and students had students videotape computer and other activities and present the videotape at a board meeting. By targeting outdated equipment, the committee obtained…

Parental coaching with homework of gifted children is considered. The coaching process involves planning, teaching, reflecting, and applying what has been learned to the next situation. The parent's role is described as providing the right environment for working, providing help when desired, and being nonjudgmental. (SW)

Describes a parent involvement program designed by two elementary school teachers at a Phoenix, Arizona, elementary school. The K-3 teachers began with a parent training session demonstrating how parents could make manipulative learning games out of household odds and ends to use with their kids. Workshops were so successful that they were…

Evaluates recent literature regarding schools' parental involvement efforts, chronicling programs describing diverse rationales and benefits for parent participation and presenting a taxonomy for classifying underlying reasons for low parent-school involvement. School-parent communications are the key to any intervention effort. Parent-involvement…

Although parent involvement is essential, state education agencies have provided little financial support for staff and programs needed to improve school-family connections. This article discusses elements of good parent involvement programs and describes several successful examples. Advice is given for creating and managing school volunteer…

In October 1993, Kansas City Head Start project created Full Start, a pilot project with two neighborhood child care centers. Full Start is an expansion program to enable a wider range of needy children otherwise not eligible for Head Start to benefit from comprehensive services. Full Start parents are treated as equal partners participating in…

Summarizes a study of four Lutheran schools to determine whether there were significant differences between the mean degree of parent involvement in educational activities at the instructional and institutional levels and for grades K-6 and grades 7 and 8, as revealed by parent opinion. Participation is greater at the instructional level but is…

Alliance for Achievement is a community-building model allowing the principal, teachers, and parents to articulate a common base of educational values, set goals, and develop expectations for one another. Supporting Roland Barth's recommendations, the model helps principals articulate a mission and share authority and responsibility for attaining…

By focusing parent involvement programs on the parents and families instead of student "type," schools should identify parents not served by traditional outreach programs and find surrogate parents for certain students, as needed. Maintaining parent involvement depends on keeping records, respecting family culture and language, encouraging parents…

The key element in parental involvement is a sense of parent-school partnership. Parents can participate as decision makers, helpers, and coeducators. Facilitating parental involvement means removing five barriers: distance between parents and teachers, lack of teacher training, race and class biases, limited views of parental involvement, and…

This article describes a decade-long program of values education initiated by a public school system, with support from the local Parent Teacher Association council. The article also discusses cooperative efforts to develop and implement a program that includes the study and practical application of ethics and conduct codes. (IAH)