Parent-Friendly Schools: Some Schools Create Positions, Rooms For Them

By Lyn Jerde

The Jefferson Elementary School students who hug her in the hallways ask Kristin Cisewski the same question over and over:

“When are the big people coming to school?”

The “big people” are adult volunteers at Jefferson, a K-5 school of 321 students in Stevens Point. They are parents, residents of the neighborhood, students from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, retired people, and just about anyone else Cisewski can persuade to spend an hour or so listening to a child read out loud.

Cisewski is coordinator of Jefferson’s Family Learning Center, where “the big people” have a room of their own.

Wisconsin public schools that set aside a room for adult visitors — and have someone like Cisewski to facilitate adult involvement in schools — help achieve the goal of two-way communication between the school and the community.

Making families comfortable

“It’s good to have a place to make families comfortable in the school,” said Jefferson principal Pam Bork.

Cisewski, who recently received her education degree from the University of Wisconsin-Stout — and who hopes to be an early childhood or elementary teacher someday — is a volunteer, working through Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), under the auspices of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

For one year, her job is to invite more adults into the school and get them involved with the education of Jefferson’s pupils.

“By doing this, I really get into a school, and see how a school works,” she said. “That’s the benefit for me.”

Jefferson’s pupils, and its neighborhood, also reap the benefits.

If a parent seeks help for a child who is struggling in school, Bork assigns Cisewski to work with the parent and seek resources. Those resources might be community-based programs, in such venues as the public library or the YMCA.

Or, the resources might be found in the Family Learning Center.

Family Learning Center

Volunteer June Van Alstine-Kans plays a matching blocks game with a kindergartner in the Family Learning Center at Jefferson School in Stevens Point.

The Family Learning Center is a pleasant space. It has a circular sofa; round tables and chairs that are neither too big for children nor too small for adults; crayoned pictures drawn by Jefferson students, decorating the walls; a shelf full of games; and a selection of literature offering advice on how parents can be involved in school.

On Monday and Thursday evenings, the center is open for a variety of parent-child activities, such as games and art projects.

The space is also set aside for programs for adults living in the Jefferson neighborhood — classes in English as a second language, U.S. citizenship, preparation for the General Education Development test. All these meet neighborhood needs, Cisewski said, because about one-third of the Jefferson students are of Hmong descent, and some have parents who speak no English.

Bork, Jefferson’s principal, wishes for an even better room, though she won’t get it any time soon. On

November 2, Stevens Point School District residents rejected a $55 million bond referendum that would have added space to all the district’s schools. Included in the plans: a bigger, more private room at Jefferson for the Family Learning Center.

The current center is small; it used to be a library storage room. It has no door or wall for privacy; anyone using the center during the day can hear and see the activities in the library.

“Our Family Learning Center is a happening place, and that’s good,” Bork said. “But it’s an open spot. And, if you want to talk in private about your own child, that isn’t the place to do that.”

Cisewski is quick to add that there are school districts facing even greater space challenges than Jefferson’s, as they seek to set aside space for parents and volunteers.

Space problems in Antigo

Take, for example, the Antigo School District, where volunteer Peggy Ponta is starting a reading tutoring program involving parents and other volunteers in 12 Antigo area public schools and two parochial schools.

“You remember when you went to grade school, and they had coat rooms?” she asked. “Well, if we need a place to help a child in private for 15 to 20 minutes, that’s where we can do that. In some schools, there may be no room at all, and they may have to find a little cubbyhole.”

Another common challenge is continuity in staffing.

VISTA rules allow its volunteers to facilitate community involvement for no more than two years. After that, any school that wants to continue to have a person performing that job must find a way to pay for it.

Bork said Jefferson is joining forces with Stevens Point’s Madison Elementary School to apply for a federal 21st Century Learning Grant – $500,000 to pay for various after-school programs, including the salary of a liaison to do what Cisewski does now.

Milwaukee parent helps others

Victory School in Milwaukee has such a liaison, paid by the Milwaukee Public Schools.

The post used to be voluntary, said Victory parent coordinator Dawn Poznanski. At first it was four hours a week, then 20, and now she works more than 30 hours a week reaching out to parents.

Poznanski has three children – ages 5, 8 and 9 – who attend Victory, a multi-age, multi-unit school, which is K-6 now, but is scheduled to be K-7 in the 2000-2001 school year, and K-8 by 2001-2002.

“I’m a parent,” Poznanski said. “I’m not here to solve problems, but to help parents find the resources that can solve the problems.”

Parents have a room

Parents visiting Victory can go into a room that used to be a teachers’ lunchroom. There, they’ll find two sofas, tables and chairs, a computer, and beverages (coffee or soda).

“It’s OK,” Poznanski chuckled. “Granted, it could be better furnished, but we don’t have the funds.”

Most importantly, she said, the room offers a place where parents can close the door and talk to another parent – Poznanski – about any challenges or struggles their children may have in school.

Poznanski said she does this work partly because a previous parent coordinator at Victory, Regina Hull-Jackson, came to her aid several years ago.

Poznanski had been injured in an accident, and was unable to walk.

Like many parents she meets now, Poznanski had the perception that “parental involvement” requires a parent to be in the school building for several hours a week – something she could not manage in her physical condition.

But Hull-Jackson reached out to her, and offered her ideas on how to be involved from home. She could cut out flannel figures for kindergartners. She could contact legislators about school issues.

Today, she tries to convey a similar message to other Victory parents, that their involvement in their children’s education begins at home.

“It’s getting the kids fed, getting them dressed, getting them to bed,” she said. “If parents don’t do these things, then there isn’t much we can do for the children here at school.”

Poznanski said her greatest challenge is assuaging parents’ discomfort about being in schools. Sometimes, that’s based on intimidation – a feeling with which she empathizes.

Preparing for conferences

She said she was terrified when she went to her first parent-teacher conference with her oldest child’s kindergarten teacher. She didn’t know what questions to ask, and didn’t always understand the education terminology that the teacher used. Now, she teaches parents who ask for her help how to prepare for, and get the most out of, conferences with teachers.

Also, Poznanski said, parents’ discomfort in the schools is sometimes based on their childhood memories of the classroom.

“We’re confronted with things that probably never happened at this school, but may have happened to them, or someone they knew, when they were in school.”

Other challenges include the varied needs of the school’s diverse population. About 68% of the students ride the bus to school. The student body includes whites, African-Americans, Asians, Native Americans, Hispanics, Hmong, and a rapidly growing group of Arabic students.

Sometimes, language barriers pose a challenge. Sometimes, the students come from cultures that are not accustomed to having parents involved in their children’s education.

Reaching out to business

Poznanski, in partnership with a VISTA volunteer, is also reaching out to nearby businesses, enlisting their involvement. One success story: A local Builders Square store sends employees to the school to help students with building projects, such as making birdhouses.

“I would rather see businesses get involved by offering their expertise instead of money,” Poznanski said. “I know how much we need the money, but I’d rather see business people offer their expertise to our children.”

At Jefferson in Stevens Point, Cisewski has enjoyed some success in getting community members who are not parents involved in her tutoring program. For example, one of her volunteers is a man with cerebral palsy. Cisewski said the children enjoy volunteering to hold the book for the man while he reads to them. He speaks with the aid of a “liberator” – an electronic device that simulates a voice

But, even with a liaison and a room for adults, encouraging involvement remains a challenge, Cisewski said.

In homes with single parents, or with two parents who both work full time, it can be difficult to get parents into the school with their children.

“It’s a high frustration level when you can’t get hold of parents,” Cisewski said. “I don’t think it’s lack of interest in their children. It’s that they’re not able, because their financial status means they’re always working.”

Similar issue at Victory School

Poznanski finds the same challenges among parents of Victory students.

“If I can get two parents involved who never participated in school before, that’s a big thing for us, and it’s a big thing for the children – to see Mom and Dad coming to school events for the very first time.”

Open the doors wide

Bork, the Jefferson principal, said it helps schools greatly to have someone besides administrators and teachers reaching out to get the community involved – and offering them a room of their own whenever they enter the school.

“We see a lot of people who feel disenfranchised by their schools,” she said.

“We need to take every opportunity to open wide our school doors, and say to the people, ‘Come on in.’ ”

Posted January 19, 2000