Parent Partnership
Partnerships with parents, families and community:
Shaw establishes a family-friendly environment by facilitating a variety of family activity events, assisting families with parenting and child rearing skills, communicating with parents about school programs and student progress, developing and encouraging a variety of volunteer opportunities both during the school day and at home, promoting at-home learning, including inviting families to participate in school decision making and inviting community and agency services. Students experience improved attendance, academic achievement, attitudes and social behaviors when parents and community members are offered a variety of ways to participate actively in the school that takes into account the range of work schedules, preferences, and capabilities (Epstein, 1995).
At Shaw, we recognize parents as their child’s first teacher. We strive to include parents in the school community through parent involvement activities, academic conferences, and leadership/planning meetings. These activities include:
- Parent surveys
- Parent-teacher conferences
- Student-led conferences
- Title 1 Family Engagement Events
- Musical performances including Band, Choir, Strings, Guitar, and grade-level integrated music/art/literacy programs
- Sports activities including cross-country running, flag football, basketball, archery, tumbling, volleyball, track & field
- Academic competitions include spelling bee, geography bee, battle of the books, science olympiad, and math club
- At Home Reading
- Student recognition/celebration
- Visiting Authors
- Field Trips
- Open House
- Volunteer Luncheon
- National Library Week Activities
- Thanksgiving dinners
- Meetings (Title I, Staff (primary, intermediate, specials, special education), Intervention, Individual Education Plan (IEP).
To illustrate the creative activities our staff have developed: The Salmon on Parade Project received recognition at both the local and national level. The project focused on building relationships within the school community. This was done by creating art that focused on the common theme of family. After students studied the migration of Alaskan salmon, the school gave each family a wooden salmon to decorate in a way that would represent the family's culture, traditions or, "coming to Alaska" story. Families were then invited to share their salmon and migration story at a school potluck. This project was dually funded through a grant and our school's Title 1 Family Involvement funds.