My Draft for an Action Research Plan

Any event at school offering free food usually draws a substantial size crowd of parents. Sadly, for a lot of campuses, this is about the only thing that does. Often dialogue is kept to a minimum and plenty of smiles are conveyed before a relatively quick departure ensues. For such schools, does student achievement suffer from the lack of more substantiated parent involvement? Furthermore, how does one delve deeper and get beyond this sort of scenario to establish relevant and active parental participation? The involvement of parents can often be challenging, especially in regards to the secondary schools. Many times, parents believe their child is doing ‘just fine’ or it is up to them to lead their own path now that they are older. For other parents that may possess interest, meeting times are usually not convenient for them. Also, there are many more who feel they are unable to provide any real assistance. I wish to discover what works in getting these 'hard to engage parents' actively involved with students' success, as well as, taking part in a more cooperative school culture that is conducive for improvement in the performance of all students.

Sound answers to these questions and doable solutions for desired improvement are best derived from action research. Furthermore, the issue I perceive as most ripe for investigation at my campus definitely pertains to increasing the amount and improving the quality parent involvement. Parents offer unique perspectives that broaden the school’s overall understanding and vision, unseen available resources (and sometimes procurement of these resources), and accurate information pertaining to their students and others. Therefore, it is important to schedule a time most opportune for them to explain the school improvement process. Parents that have time may be empowered to help organize and carryout needed activities conducive for augmenting others’ involvement. Needless to say, it is essential for schools to build strong alliances with parents

I would also like to utilize the inquiry process to better explore exactly what is effective parent involvement. In this instance, the question I would want to explore is: What constitutes effective parent involvement from a student’s perspective? Combined with discovering ‘What activities would help engage parents to be actively involved with our campus?’ these two questions will lead to finding the best answer for my research inquiry, How can my campus improve the amount of active parent involvement?

The majority of teachers and staff will be selected by formally inviting all that are interested to participate on a special committee formed to assist in this inquiry. The committee will provide suggestions and feedback (that will also include more formal forms and questionnaires). I also intend to review disaggregated data of test results before, and after, the formation and contributions given by the committee – as well as, records of past parent involvement, logs, activities, events, and attendance at meetings. For students, I intend to utilize our Teen leadership classes (and possible English classes, as well) to discuss active parent involvement. There, they too will be asked for input. Students’ math and science homework will also be looked at for patterns of completion, as well as, evidence of strategies used. Parents will be targeted through activities (conferences, family nights, cultural days, open house, fundraisers, after-school clubs, fieldtrips, et al) and other numerous forms of communication (phone calls, emails, newsletters, blogs, surveys, and questionnaires) designed to garner their participation. Furthermore, all activities will be created to coordinate with responses of days and times that best serve the parents.

Resources and research tools that will be needed for gathering data will be provided by campus administrators, district administrators, the special campus staff committee, action research blogs, and the resources/websites given by this course. Content literature based on parental involvement in schools will also be beneficial. In addition, the use of school software will be accessed for data disaggregation of student progress and benchmark exams. Needless to say, this study will take the entire upcoming school year. The timeline for this action research project will implemented through mid-August until mid-May (ten months). This is necessary for the full cycle of grades, benchmark, TAKS disaggregation and considerable time devoted to research and the reflection needed to draw suitable conclusions. The people that will be responsible for the implementation of the action research plan are campus administrators, counselors, other teachers and staff, the special formed committee spearheaded by me, as well as, other self contributions.

To measure the success of our endeavors for improved participation of active parent involvement my campus, I plan on implementing surveys that will allow for both qualitative and quantitative responses. They will consist of short answer responses coupled with a rating scale. I will also use four point Likert Scale for measuring performance. Additional monitoring of responses will come from parents through other surveys and questionnaires, as well as, comparing students’ grades and tests results (in order to assess increased academic success, grades will periodically be monitored in math and science classes in particular over the duration of the academic year. These observations will be recorded in order to measure student academic success as compared to previous years to determine the true strength and merit of the project). Attendance sheets for functions, meetings, and other campus sponsored events will also be reviewed. Furthermore, I will also use a formal survey at the beginning and end of the year to assess the campus culture and to measure the increased satisfaction of the teachers and parents, as well as, student performance.