Search Results for: Family Engagement

Adopted January 1966 – Revised April 2017 – Deemed Relevant February 2022 – Family Engagement Commission

California State PTA believes there should be equal access to family planning guidance and services regardless of the economic or geographic circumstances of any family or individual. PTA further believes persons seeking family planning should be able to receive those services compatible with their beliefs and needs.

According to the United Nations, access to safe, voluntary family planning is a human right and is central to gender equality, women’s empowerment and poverty reduction. Family planning services are defined as “educational, comprehensive medical or social activities that enable individuals, including minors, to determine freely the number and spacing of their children and to select the means by which this may be achieved”.

Therefore, PTA supports equal access to family planning guidance and services because of its importance to the health and welfare of parents and children and for the economic security of the family.

September 2018 – Education Commission

California State PTA believes that social and emotional learning is an essential part of a well-rounded, quality education.

Consistent with the work of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), California State PTA defines social and emotional learning (SEL) as the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to:

• understand and manage emotions,
• set and achieve positive goals,
• feel and show empathy for others,
• establish and maintain positive relationships, and
• make responsible decisions.

California State PTA believes that social and emotional learning needs to be well integrated into what children experience in schools and classrooms and doing so increases student well-being and academic achievement.  Evidence shows that those positive life outcomes persist over time in all socioeconomic and racial groups.

California State PTA supports California’s Social and Emotional Learning Guiding Principles as adopted by the California Department of Education in 2018. Social and emotional learning is best and most effective when the educational community adopts whole child development as the goal of education, commits to equity, intentionally builds capacity in both students and adults, meaningfully partners with families and community, and adopts a “learn and improve” approach.

Adopt Whole Child Development as the Goal of Education

California State PTA believes schools, families and communities need to support a systematic approach to social emotional learning as follows.

• All education and youth development systems and programs should embed and promote SEL in their policies, practices, curricula, staffing, budgets, strategic plans and vision statements.
• Systems change is most effective when leadership teams include educators, students, family, and community members of varied gender, racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.
• Students and adults should have opportunities to practice, demonstrate, and reinforce social and emotional skills within the context of supportive relationships.
• Schools need to align their discipline policies with the promotion of students’ social and emotional growth, as opposed to punishment and exclusion.
• Because SEL and school climate are interrelated and reciprocal, building positive school climate and culture is supported through strong social and emotional skills.

 Commit to Equity

California State PTA believes that schools should build on the existing strengths of student, educators, families, and communities. An assets-based education is personalized, culturally relevant and responsive, and intentionally addresses racism and bias. Appropriate practices include:

• Providing SEL-building opportunities to all students, not limited by race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language, socioeconomic status, documentation status, and/or zip code.
• Recruiting and developing an educator workforce that is representative of, and can connect to, the student community.
• Engaging diverse student and parent voices in decision making and improvement efforts.
• Providing educational experiences that counteract the institutional and structural biases and related traumas that often drive inequitable outcomes for students.

Build Capacity

California State PTA believes that every student and adult in the school community must feel they belong, have value, and have a network of caring peers to rely on. To that end, schools need to intentionally focus on relationship-centered learning environments.

To cultivate core social and emotional competencies in students and adults, school communities need to create and promote common definitions of those competencies and agree on ways to measure progress in developing them.

California State PTA believes it is particularly important that all who interact with children and youth, whether in school, at home or in the community, have resources and time to work on their own social emotional development and personal growth strategies. For educators in particular, this should include addressing bias in both pre-service training and ongoing professional development.

Partner with Families and Community

California State PTA believes maximizing the resources of the entire school community advances SEL and student well being. In particular, meaningful family engagement provides opportunities for parents and caregivers to contribute and participate in their child’s learning, building mutually beneficial relationships between home and school.

Establishing expanded learning programs across settings such as early learning and care, after school, and summer can increase shared responsibility for positive student outcomes, as can partnerships with community-based organizations and local stakeholders .

Learn and Improve

California State PTA believes in using data to continuously inform improvement of instructional and school practices and using evidence to guide decision making related to students’ social and emotional learning opportunities.

The integration of SEL to promote equity and address the needs of the whole child, and of educators, is already supported in many current California policies, including the Local Control and Accountability Plan.

California State PTA, and its districts, councils and units, should help make sure that SEL and school climate are meaningfully included in the development of LCAP goals and in family and community stakeholder engagement processes. Continuously refining SEL goals and practices to meet the unique needs of each community will be integral to the achievement of social and emotional competencies.

Adopted February 2016 – Reviewed and Deemed Relevant April 2022 – Education Commission

California State PTA recognizes that many factors affect a student’s ability to learn. California State PTA further believes that a school operating according to the community school concept with emphasis on the whole child affords an excellent learning environment for children.

Community schools are defined as schools that partner with non-profits and government agencies to provide services at the school site for health, safety, behavior and social services for children, parents and community members. California State PTA believes that community schools should be run by a knowledgeable coordinator and include a shared decision making process.

Types of services include:

• medical and dental care
• mental health care
• social/emotional support services
• enrichment activities and tutoring
• truancy programs
• multiple pathways to graduation and alternatives to high school completion.
• parent programs such as English as a second language, parenting, adult literacy, computer literacy, and financial literacy
• job training and career counseling for adults and youth
• programs that support the needs of our most vulnerable populations

California State PTA believes that providing these services at the community school site will strengthen the community, increase family engagement, make the most effective use of services, and result in improved educational outcomes for children.

* “Community Schools” as referenced in this position statement are comprehensive community schools with integrated services and should be distinguished from community day schools as described in Education Code 486660-48926.

Adopted in August 2016 – Reviewed and Deemed Relevant April 2022 – Education Commission

California State PTA believes that the primary goal of any accountability system is improved learning for every student. An effective accountability system should incorporate multiple measures, promote continuous improvement, rely on shared responsibility and coordination among all participants and governing bodies, and provide transparency and clarity.

Multiple Measures
California State PTA believes an accountability system should contain multiple measures which give a more
complete picture of a school’s/school district’s areas of strength, areas of weakness and areas of need. This
should be more than a single number. Such a system should include measurement of both performance and growth with established expectations for progress. Schools and school districts should be held directly accountable for:

• students’ academic progress toward college and career readiness (including as measured by standardized test scores), as well as other student outcomes;
• conditions that support equal access, student engagement, family engagement, positive school climate, civic participation, quality teaching, and capacity building; and
• eliminating achievement and opportunity gaps as an explicit objective and specific strategies and resources
  for accomplishing that.

Continuous Improvement
California State PTA believes an accountability system must reinforce state and local commitments to continuous improvement; therefore, it should include:

• regular evaluation of progress using reliable data;
• interventions, strategies, and supports that lead toward improved teaching and increased learning and student success;
• capacity-building at all levels of the system; and
• procedures that lead to evaluation and improvement of the accountability system itself so that it grows more effective and meaningful over time.

Shared Responsibility
Accountability rests on the conviction that improving student learning is a responsibility shared by all
participants in the education system, including individuals (e.g. students, parents and families,
teachers) and organizations (e.g., schools, school districts, policy-making bodies), and also by the public
and all levels of government; therefore, California State

PTA believes that:

1. State and federal accountability systems should be aligned in their data requirements, intervention
   strategies, and other features in order to promote coordination, efficiency of effort, and clarity of purpose;
2. Local education agencies should be able to tailor their strategies to local needs and circumstances framed in the context of a set of state/national expectations that give local communities a broader societal context for determining their progress and success;
3. The State of California bears responsibility for creating the conditions that make it possible for schools and
   school districts to accomplish the goals of the accountability system. In fact, the California Constitution requires the legislature to “provide for a system of common schools by which a free school shall be kept up and supported in each district;”
4. The State of California has the responsibility to effectively oversee and manage data collection and reporting used in the accountability system to inform policy decisions and to improve on a continuous basis the conditions under which schools operate; and
5. The State of California has the responsibility to provide schools sufficient funding and resources to
   achieve the goals set in the accountability system.

Transparency and Clarity
California State PTA believes that an accountability system must provide both transparency and clarity;
therefore, it should incorporate:

1. Clear, meaningful communication of local and statewide accountability elements to all stakeholders and the public;
2. A shared and commonly understood basis for measurement of all components of the accountability system;
3. Transparency related to opportunity and achievement gaps;
4. Transparency in results, progress measures and steps toward intervention; and
5. Communication about the accountability system in languages and terminology that are understandable to students, families, and the public.

California State PTA believes that, across every facet of an effective accountability system, state and local leaders must both affirm and support the critical roles that parents play in improving student learning. Parents are their child’s first teachers, advocates for their child within the education system, supporters of their local schools, and concerned and highly-interested citizens who play a vital role in determining important school improvement strategies.

Parents are a child’s first teachers and the home is a child’s first classroom. As key resources for learning and growth, parents help to shape a child’s social, emotional and physical development so that he/she can thrive in school and beyond.

Supporting student success starts with a shared agreement among families, schools and the community to work together and it involves committed actions to make it happen.

10 Tips for Parents

As a parent, you can do your part at home to reinforce this important family-school partnership. To help prepare your children for school readiness to stay on track and expand their learning opportunities:

• Set up a daily family routine, including healthy eating and sleeping habits
• Provide a place and time at home for homework
• Check on assignments, homework and projects
• Talk each day with your child about his/her activities
• Promote literacy by reading to your child and by reading yourself
• Limit and monitor TV watching, gaming, social media and computer time
• Express high expectations and standards for your child’s learning
• Attend parent-teacher conferences, Open House and Back-To-School events
• Participate in decisions that affect your child’s education
• Tap into community resources with visits to a library, museum, zoo or theater and encourage participation in after-school clubs, sports and art activities

Engaged parents are a key factor in helping students and schools succeed. With families, schools and communities working together as partners, student achievement is enhanced and children are better prepared to do well in school.

Keep in the Loop

With pre-teens and teens, staying connected with student learning remains critical. Yet, studies show that family engagement in school drops as students move from elementary to middle and high school.

With this transition to higher grades, parents often face new challenges including figuring out ways to best support student success at home.

Parent involvement at middle and high school takes many forms. Whether it’s checking homework, talking more about college and career choices, attending Open House or volunteering for PTA and booster clubs, your engagement makes a difference.

By knowing what’s happening in the classroom and on campus, you can help your student to focus on coursework and school activities to ensure college and career readiness.

In addition to LCFF requirements for parent involvement, parents of students in California public schools have a number of other legal rights that promote inclusion of parents in student learning at all grade levels.

To enhance student progress, parents have the legal right to be included in the educational process with open access to the system on behalf of their children and teenagers.

As outlined in the California Education Code, parents have a right to:

Connect with Learning by:

• Visiting a school for classroom observation
• Participating in parent-teacher conferences
• Volunteering at school
• Reviewing curriculum
• Determining school selection
• Helping to establish and review standards

Oversee Student Progress by:

• Checking their student’s attendance records
• Receiving student test results
• Monitoring their student’s academic progress
• Being informed about psychological testing
• Accessing their student’s records

Engage in School Governance by:

• Participating in the development of school rules
• Taking part in councils and committees
• Contributing to policy development
• Ensuring safe school environments

With these rights, family engagement is identified as an effective way to help students stay on track academically and to improve our schools.

Another law, the Family-School Partnership Act, is designed to encourage parents/guardians to participate in school activities to support student success. It gives parents the right of parental leave from work to attend school activities from pre-school to high school in California.

If you work for a business with 25 or more employees at the same location, you have a legal right as a parent/guardian to request and take time off from work:

• To participate in activities at your child’s school or licensed day care facility
• Up to 40 hours/year as a full-time worker
• Up to 20 hours/year as a part-time worker
• To use existing vacation time, personal leave or compensatory time off to account for the time you use participating in your child’s school or child care facility

Any activity sponsored, supervised or approved by a school, school board, or child-care facility is acceptable. This includes volunteering in your child’s classroom, participating in parent-teacher conferences, Back-to-School Night, Open House, field trips or extracurricular sporting events and assisting in community service learning activities.

Take Action: Find parent resources and more information on the California Department of Education website: www.cde.ca.gov

The responsibilities of financial officers are specified in the association bylaws and are also established in California State PTA policies and procedures. Additional information can be found in the Finance and Job Descriptions chapters of the Toolkit. The Toolkit can be found on the PTA website, www.capta.org.

The treasurer, financial secretary and financial reviewer are generally considered the financial officers. The president, secretary and vice presidents/chairs also have specific financial responsibilities. Every PTA board member has a fiduciary responsibility to:

• Protect the assets of the organization. These assets include cash, assets, volunteers and the PTA’s reputation.
• Ensure compliance with all laws. These include federal and state laws as well as the policies and procedures of the PTA.
• Ensure the assets are used to meet the needs of the children and members served by the PTA.
• Ensure continuity of the association by preserving assets for the future and not encumbering future boards.
• Ensure the association remains transparent – all the members are given the opportunity to participate in decision making and to view financial reports.
• Ensure the association is carrying out the purposes of PTA. These include increasing family engagement, advocacy and increasing communications between home and school. Fundraising is not a purpose of PTA, but PTAs may fundraise to provide PTA programs. Councils and districts have an additional purpose, which is to train and support local associations and their officers.

PTA officers/chairmen need to understand why they are doing the things they are doing and be committed to doing them correctly and completely.