Celeste Willis Teacher at Alice Maxwell Elementary

Seeing Results in the Classroom

      First grade teacher at Alice Maxwell Elementary, Celeste Willis, shares how the Parent Teacher Home Visits she is doing every week are changing her, as well as her relationships with the students and families.

     “I had the older sister in my class and now I have the younger one. They live with a single father and the two girls are the exact opposite of each other. When I saw them at home I realized that how the girls acted at school was the same as they do at school, but I could tell they felt freer.

     The family lives a distance from school in a low income area in an apartment complex. During the visit the girls wanted ice cream, so we walked down a side street and a trailer park separated them from the ice cream truck. I was wondering how we were going to get there because there was a fence blocking us from the ice-cream truck. The next thing I knew, the older sister goes up to a chain link fence that looks just fine, peels it open and crawls through it. 

     She was so bold, although it was dangerous, of course. It was one of those moments that showed how me how these kids know how to survive, how they have street smarts.

     I see that Parent Teacher Home Visits are bridging a gap and that my relationships with the families and students are so much deeper now.  I can see that this is creating a better learning environment in the classroom.  

Cheri Osborn, Special Education Teacher

 Giving Hope Through Parent Teacher Home Visits

 When a student is struggling it can be hard to figure out why or the best ways to help her or him to succeed. But I am finding that through the Parent Teacher Home Visits, it opens up lots of new insights for both me and the families.

 Let me tell you about Annie (name changed to protect privacy). She was not completing her homework and I naturally thought she wasn’t interested. Then I did the Parent Teacher Home Visit and was warmly greeted by the family with cookies and juice. We all sat down on the couch in the living room. The family was from Mexico and English is their second language.

We talked about the daughter having trouble completing her homework and turning it in. We discovered that she had questions about her homework but was not asking for help. One of the things that we did to help fix the problem was that I shared some books with the family that are written in both English and Spanish. Now the mother could read the same book as the daughter and discuss it together in Spanish.

This is helping the family to have a conversation about the books and the characters. It is making learning fun for the child and the family. The family is participating in the child’s learning and it now seems natural to them to read together.

The family engagement of the families I have visited has really improved tremendously since doing Parent Teacher Home Visits. There is a connection that I am making in the Parent Teacher Home Visit that helps the parents and me connect on a new level with trust and ease.       When the family sees how much I care about their child, and I see how much they care too, our bond builds.

We are all in this together for one common goal. We are giving hope to the child to succeed at whatever her or his dreams are. 

Getting on the Same Page

Alex Maxwell Elementary School, Father, Lum Coleman

   Once we had the Parent Teacher Home Visit, the teacher, my children and I all got on the same page. Home is where everything starts.

   During the visits we talked about what I can do as a father to help my girls do better in school. From the Parent Teacher Home Visit I feel like me and the teachers were able to connect on another level. Now, the teachers reach out to me whenever something is going on at school so we can fix it as a group. The support is great. It truly is.  

   They tell me how the girls are doing and how I can help to make sure that they can get the most from school.  The teacher told me that my daughter was getting the value of nickels and dimes confused. I understood because she saw that the nickels are bigger than the dimes. So I made my own little change collection at home and practice with both girls.

   Communication is really the key because if you don’t know what’s going on and if you don’t ask those questions then your kids can be messed up.

   Since the Parent Teacher Home Visits, my daughters have improved their grades. They are both now getting (S+) Satisfactory Plus in school. I think the Parent Teacher Home Visit really influenced that. Now they want to do better. They want to strive more. And they see that this matters to me too.

   From the Parent Teacher Home Visit, I learned firsthand that the teachers really cared. 

Amanda French at Alice Maxwell Elementary School

True Believer in Parent Teacher Home Visits

   Seeing the conditions that our children live in continues to be an eye opener for me. I went to visit a family where all the chairs were broken, so we stood for the visit. That was ok with me, but the child was really embarrassed at their living conditions.

      It is helpful for me to see students in their homes. Working with low income children is different from my reality. So when I visit the home and see the poverty first hand, it is an eye opener.  It’s one thing to think I understand the conditions the children live in and another thing to see it.

    I visited a family who live in a one bedroom apartment with five people who sleep in one bedroom and a few others who sleep in the living room.  Our school expectations for the student to have a quiet place to complete home work isn’t realistic.  I wonder how the student can have a full night’s sleep to have energy to learn in class.

    I know that  Parent Teacher Home Visits have changed me. The visits have made me more aware, more open, more competent because I have seen the families first hand.

   I recommend Parent Teacher Home Visits to build our relationships between parents and teachers. A lot of parents feel intimidated to come into the school and the visits remove that barrier.   I think the relationship is the key to everything – trust, motivation, achievement.