Parent and Family Engagement Policy

Our doors are always open to parents, and office staff or administrators can usually meet with parents from 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM.   To save waiting time, call ahead for an appointment.  Teachers are available from 8 to 8:30 AM and from 3:30 to 4:00 PM on school days meet with parents, except on Fridays when school gets out early and we have team meetings. Please make sure you contact the teacher ahead of time if you need to meet with them on a Friday.

We will host parent-teacher conferences at least two times per year during the late afternoon and early evening hours.  These will have an open-house schedule; no appointment needed.

We will hold parent meetings as described at this link  to involve parents in school review and improvement and to solicit parent feedback about how to remove barriers to parent and family participation and help parents actively participate in their students’ education..

Interpreters will be provided in as many parents languages as possible for parent conferences and parent meetings.   We will publicize parent-teacher conferences and parent meetings on our printed school calendar at registration, on our website, via email,  and via homework notes as described below.

We will recruit and train one or more current parents to serve on the board of trustees.

We will survey parents annually at parent-teacher conferences to collect feedback about this policy and other policies and practices of the school.

We will teach parents how to check their students’ grades and attendance online, and will develop means to allow parents to use school computers for this and other family business.

We will maintain and use a parent email list for those of our parents who have internet access.  We will use our website as a central location for information about the school and will provide a translator application on our website.

When we send a parent note home with students, we will teach the note as the day’s advisory class lesson and assign as homework that the student read and explain the note to his or her parents.   This will enable us to communicate with parents who cannot read in any language, and will encourage all parents to read with their students and talk about what is going on at school.