Notify school staff and teachers that you want to do something to help support the school and your child, you want to be nvolved in the educational process.

Learn about your grade level program and subject content.

Determine your academic goals for your child.

Create 1,2,3or 4- month plan for academic achievement to be shared, implemented and monitored by parent and teacher.

Request a copy of daily, year long, unit Math Grid. This document shows what your student will learn each day in math. Parents can then make plans to support their child through home activities.

Determine which parent stakeholder groups interest you. Request a summary of all meetings. PTA is the premiere parent stakeholder organization dedicated to support students, parents and teachers.

Contact your Area Educational Advisory Council and request an official copy of their minutes.

Make an effort to visit the school at least twice during the year.

Ask that the School Improvement Plan be made available to all Parents. The plan demonstrates how the school will increase academic achievement and how parents can become part of the educational process.

Request a summary of the monthly school Improvement Team meeting. Request to become a member of the team. Parent representation is required.

Use the community library computer if a computer is not available at home.

Identify all the BCPS, State and Federal documents which define the rights of parents to be involved in their children’s education.

Identify how and when the teacher and parent will communicate concerning student progress.

Understand that student achievement takes a real partnership between parent and teacher.

Elementary Level- pre K to 3 rd grade write an informational piece about your child. The more detailed the better. It sometimes takes 2-3 months for a teacher to get to know the child. An introductory letter helps immediately.

Ask PTA or School to provide videotapes of parent workshops to lend to parents who cannot attend meetings.

Make certain your child knows addition, multiplication and division math facts, no exceptions. Have child become comfortable reading out loud, no exceptions. Make certain child knows sentence structure, nouns, verbs etc.

Try to meet and communicate with one or more parents in your child’s class or grade level. Exchange ideas and concerns.

Try to create an evening routine for homework. If you have a copier make copies of some of the work you may not get back. Use to review for test.

Take special note of the daily math class work and math homework. Constantly review the skills. Those skills will be on the, end of unit test and if reviewed regularly the test results will be high.

Use some weekend time for review of content. Flash cards can be made for any subject, not only for math.

Remember, the teacher should initially present the content of a particular subject. Parents can then make “customized” plans and methods to review and reinforce the content presented at school. Each child may have a different method of mastering the content, therefore home support should be geared to the child’s special way of learning.