Creating demand parents

Description

This dissertation examines the parental involvement policies and programs of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS), the country's fourth largest school district. Through a holistic case research methodology, it explores the multiple perspectives and practices of district- and school-level employees who are charged with involving families in education. Included in the study are the experiences and opinions of parents who participate in district-level forums. M-DCPS serves as a compelling site in which to conduct research on parental involvement, as it has developed a rhetoric about the role families should play in their children's lives and schools. It has created a parent education program, known as the Parent Academy, which reaches thousands of parents through workshops and family learning events. The district also offers opportunities for parents to engage in education matters through district-level advisory councils. My research finds that M-DCPS district staff recognize that parents can play multiple roles in education, from students of school expectations to advocates for school improvement. The district, however, focuses on families' knowledge of American school norms because staff believe that the county's large immigrant population does not understand the school system. Through the Parent Academy, the district teaches families skills to support their children. While the district desires that parents become advocates for their children so that they can help improve schools, M-DCPS has not created a clear pathway for advocacy for the parent population at large. Data also show that the district lacks a coherent support system to help schools create more welcoming environments for families. M-DCPS staff express a belief that families can play a transformative role in school reform, but the district has not focused on relationship building between parents and educators that position parents as partners in school improvement. M-DCPS has made great gains in the area of parental involvement and serves as a model of how to raise an entire system's awareness of its importance. It can further develop its parental involvement agenda by creating structures that help marginalized parents become advocates and that encourage schools to collaborate with families.

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