From 40 parents responding, these were the top answers to the survey...
What can we do to make it easier for you to participate at UDHS? 32 parents said: send out monthly newsletters
Urban Day has a Parent Resource Center. What would you like to see in the resource center? 20 parents said: literature about jobs and resume writing
What types of workshops would you like to attend? 19 parents said: discipline vs. punishment
What type of events would you and your family like to attend? 28 parents said: student performance/open house
What skills or interests do you have to lend to the school? 17 parents said: wherever I'm needed!
Interested in joining an Action Team for Partnerships? 5 parents said: yes
A big thanks to all the parents who participated. We will have Parents Plus conduct the workshops that you suggested you'd like to see, most likely during our monthly parent meetings. Also, check the job board located outside of the advocate office for job postings! Head Start has a monthly newsletter, and it can be found outside the advocate office
Having your kids physically ready for school is important, but preparing them mentally is just as important, and more often overlooked. According to a national study conducted by greatschools.net, most parents buy school supplies and adjust their kids' sleep schedules. But less than half of the parents surveyed find out what subjects their child will be learning, have them read more, or reduce videogame and/or tv time. Breaking summer habits and preparing both you and your child for the material they will be presented with throughout the year can ease the transition and reinforce their learning.
Activities parents do before the first day of school:
For every dollar you spend at Pick 'N Save, a percentage will be donated to Urban Day School. If you already have a Pick 'N Save Advantage Plus Savers Card, stop at the customer service counter and ask them to add on the UDS charity code.
Advantage Card charity code for UDS: 879140X
If you don't have a card already, it's free to sign up, just see an associate at the service counter and make sure to add the code in the corresponding box.
This list covers all the local companies I could find that support educational programs that may become of use to our school community. Other local companies support higher education, but, for our purposes, aren't included. All of these companies require or give preference to schools in proximity of their operating area.
Alterra-Contributes in-kind donations.
Bergner's- Holds a "community day" in November where schools and non-profits sell coupon books and keep all of the profits.
Briggs and Stratton- Conducts charitable giving for organizations.
Firstar/US Bank- In addition to volunteer hours, 23 percent of all charitable giving is directed toward education.
Harley-Davidson- The H-D Foundation targets communities with the greatest need and places an emphasis on education, specifically in the areas of core curriculum and academic enhancers.
Kohl's- If three Kohl's associates volunteer a minimum of three hours for a youth-serving non-profit, the non-profit receives a $500 grant through Kohl's Cares for Kids' A-team program.
Manpower - Provides adult education with workforce development programs.
Roundy's Supermarkets, Inc.- The Roundy's Foundation supports youth literacy programs and provides grant opportunities for these efforts. Roundy's also provides in-kind donations and charitable donations.
Please let me know if I am missing any or if you know of smaller businesses that would be willing to contribute to the school!
Through September 11, any community volunteer efforts can count doubly- locally and nationally. President Barack Obama wants service projects recorded on Serve.gov, a website devoted to a new national service initiative titled United We Serve. Obama said the efforts will focus on some core areas of his economic renewal plan: education, community building, and energy independence.
He spoke specifically to the need for educational volunteers. “We can rebuild our schools, but we need people to be mentors and tutors in those schools,” he said in a speech on the first day of the project, June 16.
At the site you can create a service project, register your project, and recruit volunteers. Also, you can join existing service projects based on your location or interest.
Through this website, I’ve found some bookdonationprograms for which I’ve applied. These programs acknowledge the reading proficiency loss that so many city students suffer from, unknowingly, in the summertime.
Past the initial summer push, the project will continue to grow in to a more sustained effort. While far reaching in time and wide in scope, the service project isn’t wholly altruistic. As Americans increasingly see our resources stretched overseas, volunteers can be happy to invest time in one of the last vestiges of American democracy- free, compulsory education. Building our own infrastructure and recording our efforts can only help sustain our country and children’s futures.
Some teacher turnover each year is necessary. It helps facilitate a good fit for school, teacher, and curriculum needs in addition to weeding out some of the lower-performing teachers. But recent studies have found that many teachers - up to 75% in urban districts - stay with a school for under five years. These large and frequent turnovers create a negative learning culture, since school stability is harmed.
That the turnover problem disproportionally affects low-income, predominately African-American schools is of direct concern to our learning community and its students. Turnover makes it difficult for students to connect with their teachers because they are uncertain if the teacher will be there the next year. The "if they don't care, then I don't care" attitude is catching and contagious, but curable.
The turnover doesn’t only affect student’s emotional needs, school climate, or staffing deficiencies. The estimated cost of one teacher leaving an urban school is $15,325, after factors like recruitment, administrative processing, induction, and personal development are aggregated. A Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article derived this number from a study conducted by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF). The study is based off a recent study of five public school districts, including Chicago’s and Milwaukee’s.
Especially in a privately-funded school, every parent’s voice and involvement can help keep these important dollars within the school - not walking out the door every five years or less.
Quick, effective change often starts from the bottom and rises to the top, and one way of increasing teacher retention is to increase parent involvement at school and at home. Once factor cited in improving teacher retention is positive behavior of students in the classroom.
If parents instill a strong sense of discipline at home, teachers can spend more time teaching material than teaching behaviors in the classroom. Teachers then feel that they have more professionally rewarding careers since they are achieving what they went to school for four years to do- teach their content.
Negative parent-teacher relationships- another curable measure- are another reason teachers say they stay with a school for less than five years. Ways to improve this are for teachers to have open, clear lines of communication about family goals and for parents to be appreciative or open to contributing in the classroom.
Although, lack of parent involvement isn’t the only reason for turnover; positive school climate and the amount of influence teachers have in affecting school decisions also improve teacher retention.
While rest and relaxation are important for students over the summer- another "r" is often overlooked- reading. According to a recent Journal Sentinel article, students can lose up to a month and a half of learning in the summer. The article suggests that students should try to read 15 minutes a day, simply to maintain learning capacities.
Summer reading is changing to accommodate this need: The days of recommended reading lists are dwindling, and librarians and educators are shifting the summer reading focus from what kids read to how much they read. Printouts of web pages, graphic novels, magazines, and, of course, books are all good sources for summer reading. Students will retain more information if they print a web page rather than read it off the screen, since the more senses that are involved in an activity, the higher the memory retention rate. Having something tangible also gives them a better sense of how much they are reading- and allows them to feel accomplished.
Though reading and literacy activities are usually considered a solitary activity, the new emphasis on page count opens up endless possibilities for child-parent interaction. For example:
- Cook or bake with your child, and have he or she read the recipe aloud to you.
- Take a trip to the (air-conditioned) library and check out books, magazines, age-appropriate CDs (for the liner notes), or graphic novels together. Ask the librarian about summer reading program incentives while you are there.
- Read reviews of summer movies before or after viewing and discuss if your child agreed or disagreed with the review.
- If you are taking a road trip this summer, stock the car with word games, maps, and light reading materials
-Spend time together writing. Write postcards, lists, and notes together.
-Spend time together reading. Take turns reading to one another.
Whatever you and your child read and do this summer, maintain a positive, encouraging attitude toward his or her reading choices. If he or she doesn't like a book or magazine- pick up a new one. It's part of what is nice about summer reading- there's no test at the end.
RSS Feed