Dear Parents and Guardians,
I hope this message finds you well. I would like to take this opportunity to
share with you some of my thoughts regarding how to support your students if they
are struggling at school. I know parents
often have trouble figuring out how involved they should be when helping their students who
are not doing well at school. Some parents feel it
is important to be hands off because they want to foster independence in their
students and allow them the chance to advocate for themselves. I understand this approach and agree that
students – particularly 7th and 8th graders should know
how to approach teachers to seek out support.
However, many students do not know how to self-advocate without guidance
from adults. Therefore, the students
might not follow through with what their parents had asked them to do, or they
may self-advocate in ways that lead the teachers to interpret the behaviors as
any thing other than self-advocacy.
There are also parents – particularly those with younger
students – who feel the advocacy needs to solely come from the parents. Doing so may take away the opportunity for
students to practice how to take charge of their own education. Ultimately, how much parent involvement
should take place would depend on the needs and maturity levels of the students. However, the most effective approaches I have
seen parents take always involved some level of communication between the parents
and the teachers, as well as some level of involvement of the students in the
process. For example, I worked with a
family whose student often struggled with homework completion and keeping up
with the pacing of a particular class. The
parents met with the teacher when they first noticed the student was
struggling, and together they devised a plan to help the student keep up with
her school work as well as develop her skills to advocate for herself. The plan involved the student and the parent
sitting down to craft a message to be sent to the teachers on evenings when she
struggled to complete all of her assignments.
That message, sent through the student’s email account, described the
work the student was able to do that evening and proposed a plan on what she
had planned to do to finish the portion that she was not able to complete that
night.
When that student struggled to understand what the teacher
taught in class, the parent and the student again sit down to craft a message
to the teacher to request a time for the student to come for extra
help. The parents would then connect
with the teacher after the scheduled extra help appointment to check to see if
the student actually showed up. If she
did, the parent would ask if the teacher thought the extra help session was
successful and whether the student used the time productively.
By taking this approach, the parent was able to coach her
daughter the appropriate ways to advocate for herself and to monitor whether the
student was following through with the plan to receive help. Just as importantly, there is coordination
between home and family, so the teacher was able to reinforce and support what
the parent and the student are doing at home.
I hope all your students will have a successful school year,
however, if you find yourself in a situation where your student needs your help
with school, please consider taking an approach where you are connecting with
the teachers while helping your student to develop his or her self-advocacy
skills. As always, I am available to
support you if you need it.
Here are two reminders for the week:
Clubs and After
School Activities – Many of the clubs and after school activities will
be starting this coming week. We have
posted the information for each activity on our school website. You can also access that information by
clicking here. We ask you to reach out to each club advisor
directly if you have additional questions about the activities themselves.
Flu Clinic
– Please see below for a message from the Winchester Health Department.
The Winchester Health Department in
collaboration with the School District, is pleased to again offer flu clinics
at every school this fall.
·
On-line registration will
be available on Monday, September23rd.
·
Registration will end on
October 3rd.
At the on-line registration site, you
will find the information you need to sign your child up for either the FluMist
nasal spray or flu shot. If you have a question after reviewing the
information, please contact the Health Department at flu@winchester.us or 781-721-7121.
We encourage you to enroll your child in
a school clinic. A flu vaccination is an important step in preventing the flu
virus.
Thank you, and I
wish a great week!
James Lin
Principal
McCall Middle
School
