Original date: October 22, 2012
Revised: March 18, 2013
THOMAS COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM
TCMS/TCUE
Title I Parental Involvement Policy
2012-2013
Thomas County Middle School recognizes that family involvement is crucial if our students are to be successful in achievement of academic standards, and to succeed in life skills needed in our society today. It is the intent of all parent involvement activities of Thomas County Middle School to encourage and support the efforts of home, school and community in improving the educational opportunities of all children.
Parents will be involved in activities offered during mornings, evenings and weekends. The motivation for this year’s activities will be “Teaching Children, Ensuring Success” which is in sync with the system wide theme for this school year.
Joyce Epstein’s six types of involvement are the basis for the Thomas County Middle School parent involvement policy.
Standard I: Parenting: Help families establish home environments to support children as students.
Standard II: Communication: Design effective forms of school-to-home and home-to-school communications about school programs and children’s progress.
Standard III: Volunteering: Recruit and organize parent help and support group.
Standard IV: Learning at Home: Provide information and ideas to families about how to help students at home with homework and other curriculum-related activities, conferences, and planning.
Standard V: Decision Making: Include parents in school decisions, developing parent leaders and representatives.
Standard VI: Collaborating with Community: Identify and integrate resources and services from the community to strengthen school programs, family practices, and student learning development.
For each of the six standards, Thomas County Middle School will be implementing activities and strategies which are designed to increase and expand the parent involvement program.
Part I: General Expectations:
Thomas County Middle School agrees to implement the following statutory requirements:
v The school will put into operation programs, activities, and procedures for the involvement of parents with Title I, Part A programs, consistent with section 1118 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Those programs, activities, and procedures will be planned and operated with meaningful consultation with parents of participating children.
v Consistent with section 1118, the school system will work with its schools to ensure that the required school-level parental involvement policies meet the requirements of section 1118(b) of ESEA, and each include, as a component, a school-parent compact consistent with section 1118(d) of the ESEA.
v The school will incorporate a system wide parental involvement policy into its LEA plan developed under section 1112 of ESEA.
v In carrying out the Title I, Part A parental involvement requirements, to the extent practicable, the school system and its schools will provide full opportunities for the participation of parents with limited English proficiency, parents with disabilities, and parents of migratory children, including providing information and school reports required under section 1111 of ESEA in an understandable and uniform format and, including alternative formats upon request, and, to the extent practicable, in a language parents understand.
v If the system plan for Title I, Part A, developed under section 1112 of ESEA, is not satisfactory to the parents of participating children, the school system will submit any parent comments with the plan when the school system submits the plan to the Georgia Department of Education.
v The school will involve the parents of children served in Title I, Part A schools in decisions about how the minimum 1 percent of Title I, Part A funds reserved for parental involvement is spent and will ensure that not less than 95 percent of the one percent reserved goes directly to the schools.
v The school will be governed by the following statutory definition of parental involvement and will carry out programs, activities, and procedures in accordance with this definition:
Parental involvement means the participation of parents in regular, two-way, and meaningful communication involving student academic learning and other school activities, including ensuring—
1. Parents play an integral role in assisting their child’s learning;
2. Parents are encouraged to be actively involved in their child’s education at school;
3. Parents are full partners in their child’s education and are included, as appropriate, in decision-making and on advisory committees to assist in the education of their child;
4. Other activities will be carried out such as those described in section 1118 of ESEA.
Part II: Implementation Efforts
1. Thomas County Middle School will take the following actions to involve parents in the joint development of its system wide parental involvement plan under section 1118 of ESEA:
Parents from each grade level are involved in the planning, review, and improvement of parent involvement programs and activities. The advisory board reviews surveys in the spring and uses results to improve the parent involvement program. Ideas and suggestions are researched and discussed with parents, teachers, and administrators. Teachers and administrators are encouraged to review and respond to parent suggestions.
2. Thomas County Middle School will take the following actions to involve parents in the process of school review and improvement under section 1116 of ESEA:
The goal of Thomas County Middle School is to increase student achievement of all students, including every subgroup of students. Parents, teachers, and administrators receive written and verbal information on the College and Career Readiness Index, if appropriate. Written information is provided in a format, to the extent practicable, in a language that the parents can understand. Parents are notified of options such as tutoring.
3. Thomas County Middle School will provide the following necessary coordination, technical assistance, and other support to
assist Title I, Part A schools in planning and implementing effective parental involvement activities to improve student academic achievement and school performance:
Thomas County Middle School employs a fulltime Parent Involvement Coordinator to work with the Title I Director in providing coordination, technical assistance, and other support services in planning and implementing effective parent involvement. Parent Involvement Coordinators provide assistance at Title I schools by meeting with parents individually and in groups, by providing transportation and child care when appropriate at parent workshops, and by providing translation of information when needed.
4. Thomas County Middle School will coordinate and integrate parental involvement strategies in Part A with parental involvement strategies under other programs. Parental Involvement activities at the system level are a coordinated effort with the Early Intervention Program (EIP), Migrant Program, English to Speakers of Other Languages Program (ESOL), Special Education, and our Preschool Program. In addition, Parent Involvement activities are coordinated with community wide programs such as Family Connections, HeadStart, Thomasville Community Resource Center, Business Education Exchange Partnerships (B.E.E.), and Hands On Thomas County.
5. Thomas County Middle School will take the following actions to conduct, with the involvement of parents, an annual evaluation of the content and effectiveness of this parental involvement policy in improving the quality of its Title I, Part A schools. The evaluation will include identifying barriers to greater participation by parents in parental involvement activities (with particular attention to parents who are economically disadvantaged, are disabled, have limited English proficiency, have limited literacy, or are of any racial or ethnic minority background). The school system will use the findings of the evaluation about its parental involvement policy and activities to design strategies for more effective parental involvement, and to revise, if necessary (and with the involvement of parents) its parental involvement policies and procedures.
A Parent Advisory Board meeting is held each fall and spring to review the content and effectiveness of parent involvement on the quality of our Title I school wide programs. Parents, administrators, and the Parent Involvement Coordinator from each Title I school, along with system administrators participate in these yearly meetings. Information is gathered and recorded from parents concerning barriers to parental involvement in all subgroups including economically disadvantaged, disabled, limited English proficient, limited literacy, and racial or ethnic minorities. Parents are also encouraged to complete surveys from the Parent Involvement Coordinators. Results from these annual reviews and from the surveys are used to plan and implement parent involvement policies and activities for the following school year.
Thomas County Middle School will build the school’s and parents’ capacity for strong parental involvement in order to ensure effective involvement of parents and to support a partnership between the school, parents, and the community to improve student academic achievement, through the following activities specifically described below:
A. The school system will, with the assistance of its Title I, Part A schools, provide assistance to parents of children served by the school system or school, as appropriate, in understanding topics such as the following:
· Common Core Georgia Performance Standards,
· Georgia’s student academic achievement standards,
· Georgia and Thomas County academic assessments including alternate assessments, and benchmarks
· Requirements of Title 1, Part A,
· Monitoring student progress,
· Working with educators
· Working with administrators
Parents are provided a handbook at the beginning of each school year that describes and explains the school curriculum. Written information and parent workshops are provided to explain assessments used to measure student progress and proficiency. Report cards are sent home to parents, and open houses are held quarterly. School newsletters and the system monthly publications are available to parents in print and on the school and system website.
B. Thomas County Middle School will provide materials and training to foster parental involvement in areas such as academic achievement, literacy training, and using technology. This is accomplished by promoting literacy training and the use of technology through workshops and through collaborative efforts with Southwest Georgia Technical College. Our school also has a parent resource center with a variety of free materials, items that can be borrowed and computers for parental use.
C. Thomas County Middle School will, with the assistance of its staff and parents, educate teachers, pupil services personnel, principals, and other staff, in how to reach out to, communicate with, and work alongside parents as equal partners. In addition, the knowledge of how to reach out to parents and the ability to establish partnerships between parents and schools are promoted through professional learning and printed material. Certified and classified school personnel are reminded that parents are equal partners in the education process. Learning opportunities are not limited to local events but may include participation in regional, state, or national conferences.
D. Thomas County Middle School will, to the extent feasible and appropriate, coordinate and integrate parental involvement programs and activities with Head Start, Cross Creek Elementary, Garrison-Pilcher Elementary School, Thomasville City School System, Reading Rainbow, and public preschool and other programs, and conduct other activities, such as parent resource centers and Back to School Blitz, that encourage and support parents in more fully participating in the education of their children.
E. The Thomas County School System endeavors to provide information related to the school and parent programs, meetings, and other activities in an understandable and uniform format, including alternative formats upon request, and, to the extent practicable, in a language the parents can understand. The school system has made available training and access to the TransAct Multilingual Library obtainable through the internet.
Part III: Discretionary Activities:
The Thomas County School System provides additional discretionary activities for Parental Involvement that the school system, in consultation with its parents, chooses to undertake to build parents’ capacity for involvement in the school and school system to support their children’s academic achievement, such as the following discretionary activities listed under section 1118(e) of ESEA:
· Involving parents in the development of training for teachers, principals, and other educators to improve the effectiveness
of that training;
· Providing necessary literacy training for parents from Title I, Part A funds, if the school system has exhausted all other
reasonably available sources of funding for that training;
· Paying reasonable and necessary expenses associated with parental involvement activities, including transportation and
child care costs, to enable parents to participate in school-related meetings and training sessions;
· Training parents to enhance the involvement of other parents;
· Maximizing parental involvement and participation in their children’s education, arranging school meetings at a variety of
times, or conducting in-home conferences between teachers or other educators who work directly with participating
children, and whose parents who are unable to attend conferences at school;
· Adopting and implementing model approaches to improving parental involvement;
· Establishing a system wide parent advisory council to provide advice on all matters related to parental involvement in Title
I, Part A programs;
· Developing appropriate roles for community-based organizations and businesses, including faith-based organizations, in
parental involvement activities; and
· Providing other reasonable support for parental involvement activities under section 1118 as parents may request.
Part IV: Adoption:
Thomas County Middle School Parental Involvement Policy has been developed jointly with, and agreed on with, parents of children participating in Title I, Part A programs and adopted by Thomas County Middle School/Thomas County School System August 2012, and will be in effect for the period of the 2012-2013 school year. The school will post the policy on the school website, and copies will be available in the office immediately for parents and school personnel.
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Principal, Thomas County Middle Date
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Title I Director Date
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Superintendent Date
Standard I: PARENTING: Helping all families establish home environments to support children as students.
Strategy / Person Responsible / Status / EvaluationHire a Parent Involvement Coordinator / Administration / Completed / School and System Evaluation Instrument
Develop a Parent Resource Room / Parent Involvement Coordinator / In Progress / Sign in/out sheet for materials/supplies
Back to School Blitz / Parent Involvement Coordinator, Title I Director, Community Volunteers / In Progress / Parent Participation/Sign in Sheets
Workshops—Parent Orientation, School Introduction, Volunteer Orientation / Parent Involvement Coordinator, Title I Director, School Administrators / In Progress / Sign In Sheets/Workshop Evaluations
Standard II: COMMUNICATION: Design effective forms of school-to-home and home-to-school communications about school programs and student progress.