How home visits changed parental involvement at my school
“You can’t teach them until you
reach them.”
These were the words of a dear mentor
of mine early on in my career,
and I can honestly tell you I didn’t
understand
the full magnitude of those words until
I became an elementary principal.
Now today, I realized she was trying to
tell me,
“Tom, we need to Maslow
before we bloom.”
And what I mean by that statement is
we need to do more than just build
surface level relationships
and expect students to perform
academically for us.
We need to place a high priority on
addressing the basic physiological needs,
safety needs, psychological needs, and
self-fulfillment needs of our students
before we begin our quest to build
their cognitive skills.
When I first assumed the role of principal
at Evergreen Avenue Elementary School
during the summer of 2016,
one of my first tasks
was to meet with my summer planning
committee,
which consisted of seven teacher
leaders in my building.
One of the questions I proposed to that
group was: If you had a magic wand,
and you could grant three wishes for
Evergreen Avenue Elementary School,
what would those wishes be?
And time and time again, I heard the
same two answers that kept coming up.
There were a lot of other answers, too,
but there were two prominent answers.
The first was more parental involvement,
and the second was more
support for our families.
Now I didn’t want to come into
my new position my first year
like a bull in a china shop and
change everything, right?
That’s not what I was planning to do.
The evidence was clear that I couldn’t sit
back and keep it status quo either.
I knew I needed to do something
that would elevate the entire school community.
As an assistant principal of the middle
school in our district,
I was known in our district to make
home visits to families
when I couldn’t get in touch with parents
or guardians,
but it was usually when the student had
done something wrong.
Nevertheless, I never returned the same.
What I found is that after each encounter
and interaction with the family
at their home,
I began to look at the child
through a different lens.
I left those home visits
with a clear picture
of why the student may have
been acting out.
I couldn’t help but serve now with
a more caring and understanding heart.
So here was the idea that
I pitched to my staff:
rather than trying to force parents to
come to us, I’m gonna go to them.
See most schools have recognition
programs like student of the month,
honor roll, principal’s list.
We were going to recognize students
and our students on a more consistent
and frequent basis because I know
a thing or two about recognition, right?
Babies cry for it, men die for it, both kids
and adults love it, and as a result,
we were going to create a weekly
recognition program
called Standout Leader of the Week.
Then rather than go to our students'
homes when something bad happened,
I was going to go to our familes' homes
to celebrate when their children
did something great.
Well that first year I told my staff,
“I don’t care how the students
stand out in your classroom,
that criteria is completely
at your discretion.
It could be for great behavior, academic
growth, social emotional growth,
kindness or something else.
All I ask is that each of you select one
student per week,
and then I’ll visit that student
at their home
and deliver a certificate of achievement
and a pencil that says,
‘My principal is proud of me.'”
With 4 special needs classrooms and
14 regular education classrooms
and approximately 300 students in our
school,
I knew if I visited one student from each
classroom every week
that would definitely place me in
every child’s home
before the end of the school year.
I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was
for that first full week of school.
I remember Friday not being able
to get here soon enough.
And the parents and the grandparents
and the families that I met at each home
when I did these visits, they were
absolutely amazing and so welcoming.
They recognized that I was making a
sacrifice every Friday from 4 p.m to 7 p.m
to be away from my family, so that I
could recognize their child or grandchild.
Smiles on the faces of the children and
the pride their family showed
each time I arrived at their homes
was priceless.
So now we’re five years
into this program now.
I can’t believe it and I stand here
before you today to share
that the level of trust that has been built
between parents and our school
from this one decision, this one action,
has been astounding.
The program has helped me to identify
the needs of specific families
and open the door to conversations
that may not have taken place before
because the trust just wasn’t there.
Now if a mistake is made on our part
as a school,
parents aren’t knocking down our door,
breathing fire
and looking for a pound of flesh,
they’re coming in and we’re calmly
resolving the issue together.
Why? Because this program has
deposited so much good will
between the school and families, that
our parents are trusting
that we’re making the best decisions
for their child.
Parents are becoming true partners in
their child’s education.
We’ve seen a major increase in their
involvement.
Our back to school nights and even
events for moms and dads and families
are now free frequently
packed to capacity,
sometimes with standing room only.
I can also share how proud I am that
we’ve seen a significant decrease
in our number of discipline referrals
over the last several years.
We actually even did away with
detentions
because we just didn’t need them anymore.
We also had every single subgroup
in our school
meet the standard for student growth on
park for the 2017-2018 school year.
I believe that may have been the first time
it ever happened in our school.
You may be saying to me, “Tom, my
school is so much bigger than yours,
there’s no way I could visit
every child at their home
before the end of the school year.”
I totally understand.
Standout Leader of the Week is the
program we chose
for my school community.
My advice to you would be, meet with your
staff and answer this one question:
“What one action could we take this year
that would enable us to lead with love,
build their belief, and resurrect their
resilience?”
I promise you, when you come up with
the answer, you’ve found your vehicle
to lift every life in your
school community.