Linking parents and schools: Ohio Superintendent of Schools’ Parent Advisory Council members working toward family engagement

  • By Jennifer Kneuss
  • July 12, 2011
  • 266
Linking parents and schools: Ohio Superintendent of Schools’ Parent Advisory Council members working toward family engagement
Linking parents and schools: Ohio Superintendent of Schools’ Parent Advisory Council members working toward family engagement
Linking parents and schools: Ohio Superintendent of Schools’ Parent Advisory Council members working toward family engagement
                        
Summary: Ideally, parents should play an active role in their children’s education through working with their local schools. Members of the state’s Parent Advisory Council are offering their services to make that a reality. “Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire.” So said William Butler Yeats, and parents play a tremendous role in lighting that fire for knowledge in the hearts and minds of their children. Often, parents end up as bystanders in their children’s education, but that is not how it should be. In order to engage families, as well as communities, in the education of Ohio’s children, the Ohio Department of Education set out in 2002 to develop a Parent Advisory Council (PAC) to work with the Superintendent of Schools. That council was entrusted with the mission to ‘…provide guidance to the State Superintendent’s initiative for strong family-school partnerships’ and ‘use our experience as parents to increase parent and family engagement through effective communication while empowering and advocating for all families.’ Today, that PAC is fulfilling that mission in a renewed way. Recently, the group met in Columbus for a two day retreat attended by representatives from all Ohio regions. This included the northeast region, which includes Holmes, Wayne, and 16 other counties, and the southeast region, which includes Tuscarawas, Coshocton, and 18 additional counties. “We have close to 40 parents in our PAC,” noted Krista Allison, who is executive director in the Office of Safe and Supportive Learning Environments at the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) and serves as the PAC facilitator. “Most are pretty active. Once they commit and join on to this, they are committed to not only helping the others within the PAC, but other parents and families statewide.” “Parents need to be involved in their kids’ education. You can’t do it without that. I believe that this role that we are going to play will be to encourage and empower parents,” stated Sonya Wilson of Maumee, who serves the northwest district. “Sometimes parents want to approach staff in their child’s schools, but they don’t know how. I believe that the PAC serves a much needed role, a dire need to go out and involve parents.” She continued, “I am excited to get ready to delve into that challenge, allowing collaboration between parents and school systems, teachers, and organizations. I am excited about going out and sharing this so connections are being made.” PAC members will be contacting parents and parent groups, community organizations, principals, and school superintendents in the near future to explain the services offered by the PAC and establishing positive working relationships with those they represent. In the meantime, anyone in the community who wishes to get in touch with their representatives can do so through the ODE website. “We are very interested in making sure that the work we do here does not just stay here, but that there is really an outreach… (we want to) be able to ‘carry the waters’ back to better inform parents, families, and community members,” commented Allison. “We are creating a synergy and connection as our PAC continues to grow with other networks statewide.” Members are appointed by the State Superintendent, and include ODE staff and a member of the State School Board. Although representatives represent a broad geographic area, the eight northeastern representatives and six southeastern representatives include three from Tuscarawas County. They are Linda Patterson, from Claymont City, Indian Valley, and Buckeye Career Center schools; Jan Slocum from Indian Valley; and Jennifer Kneuss from New Philadelphia City Schools. Parents and school personnel can learn more about the Parent Advisory Council, as well as obtain contact information for parent representatives, by going to www.ode.state.oh.us and clicking on Parent Advisory Council under the Families heading, or by calling Allison at 614-644-6830. “I am a facilitator, but part of my role is to continue to engage parents and superintendents statewide as part of our Parent Advisory Council,” said Allison. “As a parent, personally, it is encouraging for me to see parents statewide come together, and to help be a synergy and outreach for other parents.”


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