Principal Champion for Parent Teacher Home Visits

Primm Walters, Sun Valley Elementary School

   The Parent-Teacher Home Visit Project  has helped us grow our school into a community center, where both students and parents alike, feel welcomed and safe. 

   As a result of the Parent Teacher Home Visits, each morning as I greet the students I see the children enter with  an eagerness to learn because not only do they feel safe, but now they see themselves as partners with the teachers in their class and school.

    We did the home visit for a family who has three girls at Sun Valley Elementary School at a local McDonald's.  By the time the visit was over the three girls, who had been very shy initially, were eager to talk to me about their interests in many areas both in and out of school.. 

   Their parents felt comfortable and appreciated the time we took to get to know them as a family.  By the end of the visit, the girls' younger brother was sitting in my lap sharing my french fries. We all felt connected. 

   As we continue with the Parent Teacher Home Visit Project our perception of the community grows deeper with new understanding.  We are less fearful in going out into the community. Our confidence has grown and we are successful in building bridges from the school to homes and from the homes back to school. 

  The changes I see as a result are why I am a strong champion for Parent Teacher Home Visits! 

Super Star for Home Visits

Regina Valencia, Site Coordinator and Teacher, Sparks High School

    Unlike a lot of her peers, Regina Valencia didn’t need to do Parent Teacher Home Visits to understand Latino culture. She has lived in Spanish speaking countries and speaks Spanish. But those factors have benefited her greatly as she began to build relationships with her students’ families in a school with a mostly Latino student population.

During the 2014- 2015 school year, Regina Valencia has done 70 Parent Teacher Home Visits!  She reports that Parent Teacher Home Visits have increased her awareness of the students’ family lives and home situations one by one.

    She sees the improvement in her communication both with the student and with the family. “It’s fun in class being able to talk to the student about Barbie the dog who jumped all over us on a visit and sat in our laps. I can talk to that particular student and say ‘hey how’s Barbie doing?’ Breaking down those barriers helps in the long run to improve the academics as well because students will come to me about more difficult things. I think that is the most important benefit of the Parent Teacher Home Visits.”

    “I had a Visit that impacted me. A Parent has three daughters that attends our school and she was going to have surgery the following week. It was close to Christmas time. I was impressed that the mother was so involved in her daughter’s education. Being a single mom getting ready to go into surgery in the next couple days, she was still willing to have the Parent Teacher Home Visit and welcomed us into her house. That was incredible.”

    Regina says that her openness to visiting families at their homes has also generated more parents’ interest in learning English as a second language as they feel more comfortable now that they have a personal relationship with me and want to be more involved in their children’s education.
   For more information about How Parent Teacher Home Visits Can Lead to School Transformaton, check out this short article from the National Education Association. 

Strong Supporter of Parent Teacher Home Visits

Melanie Reeves, Sparks High School Teacher

   When I get to know my students and their families I am better able to help them through the understanding I gain.

   Let me tell you about one of my Parent Teacher Home Visits. At this particular visit I learned that the parents had a third grade education. This helped me understand how I could be helpful to both the family and the child in different ways. For instance I will focus on more of the basics in reading and math.

   Since doing home visits parents have begun to contact me much more often. They are comfortable in reaching out to me.  

   From the Parent Teacher Home Visits I have gotten to know who my students really are. It has been an invaluable tool for getting to know the “real” person for both the students and their families.  It has helped me form a better relationship with my students because they know that I am accepting of their home, family and situations.  I have  been accepted into their home and that makes a more genuine bond between me, the student and family.  

   My biggest goal  in doing Parent Teacher Home Visits is to let the parents know that I am accessible.  I also seek to help the child become more comfortable with me and as a result more comfortable in the classroom and ready to learn from me.

   The bonding I feel with and by my students has improved tremendously since the Parent Teacher Home Visits.  They know that they are important to me. 

   Read a short good article featuring Washoe County Schools' Parent Teacher Home Visits in Education Weekly here. 

Direct Results from Parent Teacher Home Visits

Stacie Perez, Graduating Senior at Innovations High School

     Stacie is at the brink of graduating from high school.  She is also a teen mother. She says she loves her teachers and that the Parent Teacher Home Visits showed her even more that her teachers care about her.  

     She likes the visits because she feels that parents should be informed about what’s going on with their child and what the parent can do to help their child in school. Stacie says since the Parent Teacher Home Visit her mom has become more involved with her schooling. She says her mom encourages her to attend school no matter what, unless she is very sick. 
     Her mom monitors her more closely now and wants her to graduate. Stacie says that she likes the fact that her mom is more involved about school and pushing her to do her best. She says that is what she needs sometimes in order to get things done.

     Now her mom has a phone app called the infinite campus  that lets her know exactly what is going on daily.  She says she hope that when her child grows up she will have Parent Teacher Home Visits as a way to inspire her and her child to succeed in school and build a relationship with the teacher. 
    For more information on the National Parent Teacher Home Visit Project click on this website.

Change for the Better

CJ Waddell Assistant Principle at Sparks High

CJWaddell says that since she has been doing Parent Teacher Home Visits that she has “changed for the better.” She has learned to not jump to form opinions about kids as quick as she might have in the past.

Since she has a role as an assistant principal who deals with discipline,  she finds it helpful to build a relationship with the youth by doing Parent Teacher Home Visits so that the  kids see her as a person and not just someone they see if they are in trouble. It makes a big difference in her relationships with the students and parents. If she has to call a student’s parents somewhere down the road it makes it a lot easier.

“My passion for working with students has always been really big. Parent Teacher Home Visits has made the kids easier to know and recognize. Knowing something about the kids makes it easier to talk to them. It gives us something to connect with each other to discuss.

My goals for each Parent Teacher Home Visit is for us to grow comfortable with each other, and for everyone to get to know each other.  As a result, I hope that the parents and students feel comfortable coming to the school if they need help.

Parent Teacher Home Visits have helped improve students’ behavior in the class room, attendance, academics, and helps to make the whole parent teacher family relationship stronger.

After the Parent Teacher Home Visits, I see the parents feeling that the school is there to help their child get to graduation and beyond to a successful life.”  

   For more information about Parent Teacher Home Visits, check out this report. from the National Teachers Association Federation.

Building Relationships Key to Success

Michelle Hammond, Teacher at Innovations High School

This year alone, Michelle has done over 40 Parent Teacher Home Visits. She has been doing them for 5 years now, even before she was paid to do them. She believes that the first step in effectively teaching a child is building a relationship with them. She says the better the relationship is with the child the more likely the child will graduate, and for the student to be fully engaged in learning.    

Going on Parent Teacher Home Visits have been a constant reminder to Michelle of how important it is to treat every student and family differently. Last Fall Michelle did a Parent Teacher Home Visit with a student who is a teen mother. The young lady was not living with her parents and moving around a lot. She was struggling with school attendance.  At the time of the Parent Teacher Home visit she was living with her older sister. There was tension and frustration between the student and her sister because of the student’s poor attendance and grades dropping.

Michelle helped the student tell her sister about her upcoming class presentation for the following week. The following week at the time of the presentation, in walked the student’s whole family to be there to show support.  The student burst out in tears of joy to see the support.  The student knew that the sister cared about her after that, and that she wasn’t just being hard on her.

Michelle says that she is continuing to work with the family and she is seeing the student make real progress as a result.  “I’ve always believed that you cannot teach a child anything, if you don’t first have a relationship with them.”

Stephanie Platner, Champion for Successful Students

Through Parent Teacher Home Visits

    Parent Teacher Home Visits have increased my cultural sensitivity. There are so many culturalnorms and expectations that you don’t think about until you enter a home and experience them.

     During one of the Parent Teacher Home Visits to a family of Mexican origin, we were greeted by the parents of the student with a large meal. They were excited to meet us. They told us about their food and where they get it during the meal.  When we went to eat the food with our forks and they laughed at us. They said we don’t use forks for that, we just pick them up with our hands and eat them.  I appreciated their humor and enjoyed learning more about the Mexican culture.

     Through Parent Teacher Home Visits I have increased my cultural sensitivity and awareness. Understanding that when our kids come to school, what we may be expecting them to know might be different in their culture,  especially for young children. Increasing my awareness of where the child comes from, what goes on in their home, and what’s going on with their family helps me to help the child in the better ways.

     How to use the strengths from a family’s culture to encourage learning and academic growth is an area where I am growing and see improvements.  Parent Teacher Home Visits has opened up new avenues for me to connect with parents and children that would have been much more difficult otherwise.