Melissa Bailey Photo
Acting on a challenge from the school reform team, Rosa Rodriguez found a way to bring almost every parent in school out to report card night.
Rodriguez (pictured) is the PTO president at Nathan Hale School, which serves grades pre‑K to 8 in the East Shore. Tuesday, she shared her parent-pulling secrets.
She is one of about 100 parent leaders citywide who were asked last fall to recruit as many parents as possible to report card night on Nov. 18 and 19. (The next round of report card nights, originally scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday nights, were postponed two weeks because of the snowstorm.)
The challenge was part of the mayor’s school change campaign. The campaign aims to cut the dropout rate in half, close the achievement gap and prepare children to succeed in college — in part by getting more parents involved with their kids’ educations.
For the first time last November, the school district kept track of how many parents showed up to report card night, where parents find out their child’s grades and talk with teachers. A ranked list was released last month to parents.
Nathan Hale emerged in third place with 95 percent turnout. Bishop Woods School and Edgewood Magnet School both reached 96 percent turnout. (Turnout was measured in percent of students whose parents attended.)
Click here to view the full ranked list provided by the Board of Ed. The “total # attended” column shows the number of students whose parents attended.
“It’s all about communication,” said Rodriguez, an energetic mother who’s in her second year as PTO president.
Three other schools scored in the high 90s: Davis Street, Worthington Hooker, and Conte/West Hills, where parents are resuscitating an inactive PTO.
The Cross CT Scholars Program, where teachers tried out innovative student-led parent teacher conferences on report card night, reached an 84 percent turnout, soaring above the city’s two biggest high schools, where turnout hovered near 30 percent.
Boosting attendance at report card night has been one major focus of the citywide PTO, which was revived last fall as part of the school reform drive. School administrators picked two active parents from each school to join the group. At the group’s first meeting last November, they brainstormed how to get more parents out to report card night. In January, they found out how they did.
New Challenge Set
Parents with high turnout shared their success stories at a January meeting of the citywide PTO, according to Laoise King, the new external affairs chief for the school reform drive. When the group met again last week, parents set their sights on a new goal.
“We have now posed the challenge to the PTOs to increase turnout by 10 percent for the February report card night,” King said this week.
Wednesday’s snowstorm gives PTO presidents like Rodriguez two more weeks to reach more parents. Last time, 460 students, or 95 percent of grades K‑8, had their parents attend. Her new goal: 100 percent turnout.
Rodriquez knows that might be difficult, since some parents work at night. She said she plans to continue with the strategies that worked well in November.
Constant communication with parents — sometimes over cranberry scones baked by teacher Sue Kelly — helped her school emerge near the top of the district in parental involvement, she said.
Rodriguez spoke with the Independent between rushing around the school on various missions Tuesday. In the morning, she unloaded Valentines Day supplies from her closet — she has her own closet at school, stocked with plates, cups and napkins for the ubiquitous parent functions she helps arrange — and distributed them to younger kids at school.
Around 2 p.m., she emerged from the front office.
“Hola, como están?” she said, greeting a trio of moms who were chatting in Spanish.
Across the hallway, she delivered a piece of Girl Scout mail to another mom.
It was a routine scene; Rodriguez shows up there every morning and every afternoon.
“I come here every day at one o’clock. That’s what I do,” she said.
Rodriguez has two daughters at Nathan Hale, in the second and fifth grades. Her son just graduated. She’s quickly become a familiar fixture at the neighborhood school.
“We’re glued at the hip! She’s here every day,” said Lucia Paolella, who’s in her third year as Nathan Hale’s principal.
Paolella and Rodriguez launched a regular breakfast called “Café Hale.” Each month, before parents come in to see student presentations, they’re invited into the hallway to the “Café,” which is arranged by parent volunteers. Parents chat with Paolella over coffee and baked goods, like Mrs. Kelly’s scones.
“We really try to keep the door open,” Paolella said.
Tips for a Full House
Starting last year, the PTO assigned a “parent rep” to each classroom. That parent maintains an email list of all the parents in the classroom. When report card night rolls around, the parents get alerts through their emails. In its second year, that system is “really rolling” now, Rodrigeuz said.
Parents also learned about report card night through a barrage of newsletters — from the principal, from each classroom teacher, and from the PTO president — sent home in children’s backpacks. All school correspondence is posted on the school’s website.
On report card night, parents walked in the door to see a hallway filled with presentations — band uniforms, chorus T‑shirts, members of the local Boy Scout troop — and the PTO waiting to greet them. Fifteen to 20 parents volunteered to staff the school that night.
The PTO keeps relationships with parents through monthly meetings. Each meeting tackles a topic related to the curriculum. Parents who miss a meeting can catch up by grabbing a copy of the minutes, which are stacked among leaflets in the school’s front office. The meetings are well-attended: 40 showed up to the last one, which focused on school reform. The PTO has a strong fund-raising arm, with over $15,000 in the bank at the latest report.
One key to attendance at PTO meetings: Making them accessible, and fun, for students, through supervised activities in another room. For the group’s next meeting, Rodriguez has lined up a guest to lead students through an African drumming circle while their parents are talking shop. The menu helps, too; parents will be munching on soul food while they chat.
While Rodrigeuz was quick to credit fellow parents who make the events happen. Parents like Caroline Cicarella, who was waiting at the school to meet with her son’s teacher. She’s the head of the local Girl Scouts troop, which Rodriguez’s daughter attends.
“We have a really involved group of parents here,” said Cicarella, when asked about the school’s success. “There’s a community here.”
“A lot of it has to do with her,” she said, gesturing to Rodriguez. “It really does.”
Excellent! Engaging parents will only increase the probability of success of reforming our education system.