Sharing Hopes and Dreams for My Daughter

Parent, Anna Williams

"I had heard about the Parent Teacher Home Visit Program so I was excited when my 7 year old daughter, Jerica's, teacher, Ms. Rose, at Sun Valley Elementary School, contacted me to schedule a visit.   I thought it was cool. 

Jerica was very excited and showed her around our home. She was especially excited to show her our fish.

As a result of the visit, I feel more connected about what is going on with Jerica in the classroom. It has opened up Ms. Rose and my communication. I know that the teacher has a lot of students that she is responsible for, so this helped us know each other. 

She asked me about my goals and dreams for my daughter. It was good to be able to share my hopes for Jerica.

Since the home visit, my daughter is more motivated to read at home and has been putting more effort into her homework. I have a hard time helping her without giving her the answers, but now I don't need to as she is working harder. 

I am grateful for the Parent Teacher Home Visit Program."

Annie Dean, Professional Teacher, Grows From Home Visits

  Over the past year I visited over 50 families with the Parent Teacher Home Visit Project.  Colleagues and I visited nearly entire classes! Home visits generated lots of excitement; students were proud and confident as they announced, “You're coming to MY house today!” 

   Classroom communities flourished and even shy students opened up after visits. I enjoyed a deeper relationship with students; I could ask more meaningful questions because I had the family context as a resource. 

   Each family has a unique story to tell. Still, common themes emerged as we conducted home visits and began to see parents as true partners in education.

  All valued education. Many parents came to this country to give their children the educational opportunities they did not have in Mexico. All were grateful for teachers. 

   One father was deeply honored when we arrived; a teacher had visited him in Mexico when he was a child. It was a fond memory and he was glad his daughter would remember the day her teacher came to visit. When asked about his hopes and dreams for his children, another father answered, “I want my children to have good jobs. Jobs they enjoy. And I hope they give back to the country that has given them so much.” 

   Home visits have enriched my life, personally and professionally, and I'm grateful for the experience. 

  I hope the Parent Teacher Home Visit Project continues to grow! I have now moved to Carson City and hope I can do home visits there too.

Once You Do a Few, You Get Hooked
Micheal Recchia, Sun Valley Elementary School Site Coordinator

   "Last year we had several teachers whose goal was to do Parent Teacher Home Visits for every student in their class. They nearly got there and probably will this time. They saw first hand the value to each child and cumulatively in their classroom.

   We have conversations about Parent Teacher Home Visits in the lunch room all the time. I learn about the teachers' experiences with the visits and then send out encouraging messages to them regularly. Our principal, Ms. Prim Walters, also sends shout outs to the teachers to recognize their progress with the visits.  She and Assistant principal,Brian Prewett,are in full support of the visits. Ms. Walters recognizes staff in daily emails, at staff meetings and in morning announcements. 

   The relationships you build through the home visits can't be beat. You get to be a part of the neighborhood. You get to see the whole family. You learn more about their lives than you ever could in school. 

   One mother fed us a delicious meal. I had no idea what a stellar family they were. The dad and one teen were going to work out together at the gym after the visit. The other teen was going off to his part time job. The house was immaculate. It changed my point of view.

   You even get to catch up with the siblings who were at the school previously but are now in middle school or high school and see how they are doing. It creates bonds and they feel special that you remember them. 

   I have lots of ideas about how we can make the Parent Teacher Home Visit Program even better this year!" 

   

"She Sat On Our Couch"

We are the parents of two daughters, including Lupita, who is in Kindergarten at Kate Smith Elementary School.  

My wife and I came to the U.S. from Mexico to have a better life. It was scary in Mexico with a lot of crime and kidnapping. Our daughters were born here and we want them to have opportunities to learn and do well.

 When Lupita started in pre-school she didn’t speak English and was shy and quiet in school. We were visited by Perlita’s teacher, Ms. Kelly, twice. We told her that school was very important to us. But we didn’t know how to help our daughter. I was scared at first to ask her questions.

But Ms. Kelly got to know us and we found out what a caring, kind teacher she is.  She offered good ideas about how we could help our daughter and she asked for our ideas too. We were very happy to meet her in our home. She sat right on our couch.  She took the time to answer my questions and to listen.

After the first visit, Lupita became very motivated to learn. She says, “come on I need to study.” She grew to love math. And her communication improved. She grew happy and made more friends.

Then this school year, Ms. Mueller, Perlita’s Kindergarten teacher, visited us twice. She is a great teacher. She told us that Perlita is learning very quickly. I am so happy to hear that.

Lupita tries hard.  She wants to learn about everything and tells us that she wants to be either a doctor or a teacher, like Ms. Kelly and Ms. Mueller.

I want to help her to succeed. And with the support of the great teachers at Kate Smith Elementary, I think I can.  Maybe if Parent Teacher Home Visits were in all the schools, there would be no more shootings or bullying. The teachers and parents would know each other and what is going at home and at school.

 ~ Elia Vilelzo and Rene Espinoza-Morales.

This is Why I Teach: Calen Evans 

Champion for Parent Teacher Home Visits

I am  2^nd Grade teacher at Lemelson STEM Academy. I became a teacher to help improve the lives of children.

Lemelson is both a wonderful and very challenging place to be a teacher. Its student population is mostly poor with many English language learners, high transiency rate, and low pre-K education. As an Anglo teacher, I face barriers of language and culture.

This year I was fortunate to be involved in the Parent Teacher Home Visit Program for my school and visited the homes of 20 families. These visits helped me to have a better understanding of the lives of my students and the difficulties they face that come from poverty, racism, undocumented status, witnessing violence and more. The visits have increased my ability to openly communicate with parents, building my communication with them in improved ways,  making my job of educating children vastly improved. 

When I visited the home of a student I will call Mara, I faced language barriers, and fear from the mom who was reluctant to participate because of fear. She was intimated by participating in the school life of her child because neither she nor her husband was able to finish a grade higher than 5^th.

There were many difficulties they faced that opened my eyes to the reality of my student. Five people in their family all live in a one bedroom apartment; all five sleep in the same room. Dad works full time as a mechanic and mom is a waitress.

Yet I found that they want a better life for their kids. We were able to develop a relationship built on trust and communication.

Now, every day, Mara’s mom brings her into the class says hi and hugs me. I know the family’s names and ask about them. It is obvious that I care. She now feels comfortable talking to me, even though her English is very limited.

Her daughter is one of the highest performing students in the school and ranks in the 85^th percentile nationwide, despite being bilingual with little English spoken at home. Her brother is also excelling. 

This is why I teach. To put into practice the care and love I have to give the children in my classroom the opportunity to have a better life, just like their parents want for them.

True Believer in Parent Teacher Home Visits

4th Grade Teacher LaNesha Battle

This year at Anderson Elementary School we began the Parent Teacher Home Visits Project with the entire faculty. We were able to recognize that a disconnection between home and school was not good for our children, for the parents or for us as teachers.

 Before the home visits began, only the same parents would sparingly come into the schools. Teachers felt that parents were too busy to participate in the education of their students and that we had to do it all.

That was a huge misconception! Most of the parents thought teachers only cared about the academics of students – another huge misconception! Teachers and parents were both surprised at the outcome of the home visits.

I visited with one family where I had taught the older sister and her sister is currently in my classroom. The mother was hesitant, but both daughters were excited about my visit. When I arrived, the mom had her 3 daughters, 2 toddlers, and the baby she watches, all there. So of course I now understood her hesitancy!

They were very excited to see us. The mom was standoff-ish in the beginning, but as the daughters excitement began to show more and more she warmed up. We laughed and talked for the entire visit.

When the student told the class about the visit, the other students wanted to know when I was going to visit their homes! This student and I created a new bond that will never be broken, all because I showed I cared, by visiting with her family.

So to my fellow teachers, I say: "Yes, Parent Home Visits will take extra time out of your day. It will require you to make some additional phone calls. But, ask yourself: If you have children, how many of them build relationships with people you know nothing about? Is it worth an hour out of your day to make a connection with a student who will remember that hour for the rest of their life?" 

Yes! It is worth it to me and to those children whose lives I touch.

12 Year Old Dreams of Her Future

 Nayeli Castillo First Public Speaking

On March 26, 2014, 12 year old Nayeli Castillo delivered an amazing speech in support of Parent Teacher Home Visits. Here it is in her words. 

I am twelve years old and in sixth grade at Echo Loder elementary school. My dad is Jose Castillo and my mom is Yolanda Partida. I have a twin brother, Daniel. I started at Echo Loder in kindergarten. My mom and dad are from Mexico and they speak Spanish.

When I’m not at school, I usually do my homework and read. On the weekends, I like to spend time with my family, play games, or read scary stories for fun. In school, I love doing math because it’s challenging.

I have never had a home visit before this year. When I found out my teacher was going to come to my home, I felt excited. I felt special because none of my other teachers had come to my home.

 I was also a little nervous because I was worried my teacher might say bad things about how I am in school. But it turned out to be all good things.

My teacher, Mrs. Morton, and my brother’s teacher, Mrs. Thobodeaux, came to my house in November. They talked with my parents about my future, like my goals for middle school and high school and what I want to do when I grow up. They talked a little about how school was going, and about the soccer game on TV. 

They also met my crazy uncle, who ended up doing a lot of the talking, and made our teachers laugh. After the home visit, I didn’t feel nervous anymore because everyone had said nice things about me.

Because my mom is usually working and hadn’t been able to come to teacher conferences, she isn’t usually able to meet my teachers. The Parent Teacher Home Visit made me feel special.

I have been dreaming about my future goals, especially since the home visit. I am dreaming about becoming a teacher because I like to help students and I am patient. If I were a teacher, I would like to do home visits myself because I think it’s important for even the parents who can’t come to conferences to be able to meet their children’s teachers. I hope there will be a home visit program when I become a teacher!

NEW VIDEO WITH TEENS TALKING ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCE

PARENT TEACHER HOME VISITS in Washoe County, Nevada

video here  

                                                           Parent Believer in Home Visits

                                                        Harmony Mcquade Tells Her Story

     I am a proud mother of two wonderful children. My daughter,Danae, is 16 and a junior in high school and my son is 5 yrs old and is in kindergarten.

     Last year was exciting  for us because my son started school for the first time at Kate Smith Elementary. We are a very close family and spend lots of time together . 

     I was a stay at home mom since the day David was born so I was not sure how David was going to react to our separation when school started, but I was hoping for the best! On the first day we were both excited and a little scared all at once. I think I probably stayed for at least an hour on that first day and had to pry David's little fingers from mine when it was time for me to leave. 

     Unfortunately that became a daily struggle for us. It was extremely frustrating and a little embarrassing for me . I would always think  "I wonder what his teacher thinks ? David is so different at home I wish she could see the independent outgoing little boy that I know so well." 

     This went on for about two months. David would come home from school happy and excited to tell me about his day so I knew he was having fun and liked school . I was not sure what to do.

        

     Then his teacher, Ms. Kelly, approached me and asked  if I would be interested in a home visit . I had no idea what a home visit was but I said yes.

     I was not sure why a teacher wanted to come to our home ? Did we do something wrong ? But she assured me that she just wanted to come by to get to know our family better.

     I told David every day leading up to the visit that his teachers were going to come to our house and he was very excited . When Ms. Kelly arrived David was in the front of our house building a bike ramp so that he could show her how he can "get some air" on his scooter. She was so surprised to see how brave and outgoing David was. 

    She came in and to my surprise she just started asking us about our family (what we liked to do for fun on the weekends, our hopes and dreams for David's future etc.) And we talked about me being from Hawaii. She asked if I would be interested in coming to the class to share something about our culture. I always wanted to volunteer but I was not sure how go about it . She made me feel like I was needed and welcomed me to be a volunteer in David's class . By the end of our visit I really felt like we had made a great connection.

       

     When David went to school the next day he seemed so much more comfortable . From that point on he stopped crying when I would drop him off and really became the outgoing kid that I knew he was.

 

    As a parent I think I always kind of assumed that it is the teachers job to teach at school and the parents job to teach at home . And I was a little intimidated by the "Teacher" title . But through the Parent Teacher Home Visit I have learned that teachers are human and that their hopes and dreams are the same as ours. They really just want to teach our children to be smart, happy, confident individuals. And that is pretty AWESOME !!