Hi Karen, there is an excellent article in Our Children (PTA magazine), this month about community schools. It talks about involvement and achievment. If you are a PTA member, you can access it for free at the website but you can also buy a copy if you aren't. www.pta.org/aboutpta/store/current.asp
Also, this link talks about the correlation to higher grades, test scores and more to parent involvement. www.pta.org/parentinvolvement/helpchild/pi_parenthowtos.asp
Hope it helps.

Thanks for everyone's comments. Sorry for any confusion. What I meant by linking parent group activities to student achievement was planning and implementing activities such as workshops for parents that would teach them how to support the reading skills of their childrenin K-2 at home; or helping teachers get an interactive homework program linked to the curriculum off the ground; or connecting with community members so that they can enrich what's being taught in the classroom. Using volunteers in the classroom to help teachers with students is a good way to support achievement. I guess I was tyring to think of things that could happen outside of the school building and/or school hours. Comments?

Karen--I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. Are you currently just fundraising to buy equipment, books etcetera and looking for programs to support student achievement, or are you doing more and looking for a way to better market yourselves to the parent population and administration? [img]smile.gif[/img]

I think under current budgets, any student achievement could be linked to parent involvement.

That opinion aside, yes, my school can link their parent group activities to student achievement. At least I know the kindergarten can.

There are two 28 student kindergartens run by one teacher and an assistant teacher in our school. Because of parent involvement, those kids get individual treatment that I never would have thought possible.

We have an excellent teacher who uses the helpers to take students aside in small groups. As well as normal lessons, she manages to do about 8 daily reports on students working on certain problems - ie talking in class, staying focussed, ect.

It's a combination of a wonderful teacher and a set of volunteers that make it a success despite the large class size.

In other grades, we help students drill individually for spelling bees and do other curricular enhancing activities.

Also, we have 400 students in the school and at last count 90, including kindergarteners, were signed up for the science fair. Some, of course, signed up for extra credit in a class. But still....

We just had a meeting last week discussing our goal to become a "Blue Ribbon" school. We will be working on a plan with teachers and the principle on how to get there.

If that's not proof that parent groups are helping in the actual education process, I want to know what is....and we'll find a way to emplement it.

I'm not sure what you mean by student achievement. Do you mean like Earth Day, or our Second Grade reading club or how parents help out in the first grade centers? We do A LOT besides fundraising but can you give an example of what you're talking about? The fundraising is something to support our activites, not just to rake in the money to put in a bank... right?

I'm just wondering if anyone has had success linking their parent group activities to student achievement. Any examples? Often people think of parent groups as just fundraisers. As important is this is, there are other ways in which parent groups can support student success.