Examining Teacher's Comfort Level of Parental Involvement

The connection between home and school is of utmost importance. Therefore, an important concern for those educating teachers is to help teachers recognize the need for and importance of establishing parental involvement and to help them create avenues in which communication can occur. Knowing that parental involvement is important and putting that knowledge into practice is often difficult for teachers. This study uncovered the present practices and attitudes of 131 urban teachers about parental involvement by asking them to complete an online survey. It was found that the teachers' current practice and their schools' policy did not align with their definitional understanding of parental involvement. In practice, parents were included in school sponsored back-to-school nights, parent-teacher conferences, chaperoning trips, fundraising activities, and implementing school and classroom agendas. There were few opportunities to include parents in policy making, curriculum decisions, or activities to determine and use home literacy events in the classroom.