Thank You and Good Luck

I want to thank my classmates; you all have given wonderful advice through blog and discussions. I personally could not have done this without the blogging and  discussion boards. All of my classmates are all so encouraging and I learned many things.I want to thank everyone who commented on my posts, discussions, etc because you gave me new ideas and it help in my final preparations of my presentation and completion of my advocacy plan. Today I look forward to implementing my Advocacy Action Plan. I am nervous and excited. Good luck for me J.

Many of us are graduating,  we work, we have families and yet we kept at it together. I think the difference with online education, we work systematically and saved the toughest course for the end where we can use all of our acquired knowledge.


Good luck to all of you in your continued success.
Sincerely and best wishes,

Enlisting and Providing Support Blog 4

Question you have with which your colleagues may be able to provide help and support
I would just like to have some suggestions on what type of parent involvement would be enriching to start with for the child and the parent.

Resources and information you are seeking
I am seeking resources and information that will show that parent involvement can help in a child's developmental process.

Resources and/or information you have found helpful and insightful
I have found a lot of helpful resources that I will be using with my advocacy action plan. There are many helpful websites that serve as resources for parents, teachers and the community about advocacy issues on parent involvement and the importance of early literacy. I found the NAEYC,  zero to three.org, network with my site was very helpful in aiding me with resources and information. I found information and resources that explains the meaning of parent involvement and the different levels. One article is  Epstein Six Types of Parent involvement and another one is What is Parent Involvement?  

Blog 3 Family Involvement

A quote that you find inspirational regarding the role that advocacy can have in the lives of young children and their families.

 “Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each”.-Plato.

•What inspires and excites you most about your advocacy plan and being an advocate? With education being one of the categories

 The most exciting and inspirational part about my advocacy plan are being able to make a difference in a family’s life as well as haring valuable information that will not only benefit the child but the parent as well and for them to  use it as a daily routine.

•What challenges and/or anxieties do you feel related to engaging in the advocacy efforts you have targeted?

The challenge at the moment is having parent involvement during socialization events. Due to the parents work schedule and not for them not being able to participate at the events therefore I have not being able to approach them. Also a biggest challenge and anxiety is to get the parents interested and this is the second category persuasive. I will have to use many stretegies to convince the parents to become their child's advocate.

•What do you believe will be most effective in helping you overcome any challenging emotions you may be feeling with regard to presenting and implementing your Advocacy Action Plan? My biggest challenging emotion is nervousness about public speaking. I believe that I can overcome that by being very well informed about the material that I will introduce to my audience.  I have the great feeling that the site director and teachers are on board with me with my advocacy plan. It’s a good feeling that I have their support and they are more than happy to help me out.

•How can you encourage others in their advocacy efforts, and how can others encourage you?

 To encourage others I would talk about my plan and my different strategies for the plan that I have put together. Others can encourage me by giving me their opinions with some suggestions. I also feel that another  way to encourage others to advocate is by telling them to find something they truly believe in or something that has touched them personally. We all have a voice and everyone can help someone else. I think it is important to know your voice is valuable and powerful. I think that a way to encourage others is by not losing hopes and to keep on their efforts for a positive change.  A support that I can gain from my colleagues is by them suggesting ways to involve the parents to come to our events. 

Welcome Back

Welcome Back!! And happy this is my last quarter 

Our last Blog Thank You All!!!

I am aware that for the last blog we are to thank at least a couple of peers and I will do that but I really wanted to THANK everyone from the class for sharing valuable insight on their personal experience with their observations and interactions from the field visits. I really enjoyed reading and commenting on others blogs hopefully we have found some of my feedback helpful or useful as well. Moving forward, I hope that each of you will be encouraged to be stronger advocates and genuinely help parents become advocates for their children too because we are all in this together! 

Blog 4

I have interacted with several families during my observations. This is nice because you have interactions with the families every day. You can communicate with them daily face to face. While talking one mother I found that she is a single working mother. She does her best to come in and volunteer with her child in the classroom but doesn't always have time because of her work schedule. She feels it is important to bring him to school and pick him up that way if she has any concerns she can bring them up to the teacher right away and the same for the teacher. She like for the teachers to send things home with her child so that she can interact and work on things at home that connect to things that they are doing in the classroom so that she is a part of his education. She tries to make as many school functions as possible such as family fun nights, parent meetings, parent teacher conferences, and home visits.

Another meeting I attended was on the 2/20/13  where parent had a chance to meet with the director and the parent liason  "Coffee with the Director " this meeting the director holds the third Wednesday of each month is an informal meeting with parents. The principal engages in school updates and small talk with parents that are able to attend from 7a.m. to 9a.m. At this meeting the Director  shared updates with parents regarding upcoming meeting or workshops that parents are welcome too,  and the goal she wants the school to meet of 90% parent attendance, Four parents (including myself) were in attendance.

I like the fact that the Director makes the time once a month to meet with parents to share updates and answer any questions they may have. Although, it would be better if she could meet with parents once a month in the evening where probably more parents would attend.

I think it is important for school leaders such as the Director  and the parent coordinator along with the new parent representatives to be physically present if not once a month every other month when parents are attending parent meetings. This sends parents a message of collaboration and that they care enough to be there after hours (which is when most parents are available) to hear them, their concerns and to support them.

Another insight or observation I made at both meetings I attended was that there were no introduction of the meeting attendees and I think this is so important when you begin any meeting by acknowledging your participants and thanking them for taking the time out of their busy schedules to attend such meetings. If schools want to increase and or promote parent involvement then it is important that they feel acknowledged and welcome.

BLOG 3

For this module I was able to meet with the Director.  Something that I learn was that the Director has an undergrad certification in early childhood education. She has 7 years of experience in K-1st grade and 5 years experience in administration.

I asked the Director questions regarding parent involvement. I learned that these years the Director as well as the teachers have set two school goals when it comes to parent engagement or parent involvement.  One is that 90 % of parents will attend family events such as parent conference, literacy night and end of the year festival, etc. Second goal is that every classroom will host at least two parent events / activities anytime throughout the year. I was really impressed to hear that the teachers are on board with hosting two events for their class. The Director  hosts a monthly "coffee with the director " and meets with parents to hear from them and relates messages to the parent coordinator.

The director mention she has an open door policy, the school has a website that is updated regularly, and she is responsible for overseeing the goals for parent engagement. Another goal she will be working on is how to reach out to get the parents involved in volunteer in the toddler and preschool classroom.   She shared that the more involved parents are those of the children in the head start program.

It was a good interview and I got some pretty good insight of some of the schools strengths and challenges when it comes to parent involvement from a center perspective.  I also got good ideas to bring back in to my workplace on the different activities that we can provide to parents where they can meet with their child’s teacher.