Posted on: Thursday, April 14, 2005
In Hilo, parents are in the loop
By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Education Writer
From class schedules to school calendars, attendance policies to graduation requirements, the ninth-grade support team of teachers and counselors at Hilo High School on the Big Island has thought long and hard about what parents need to know to support their children during their first year of high school.
Hilo High School's ninth-grade support team provides parents with a survival kit full of information to help their children succeed in school. They ask that parents check planners or agendas once a week, make sure homework is completed and be involved. Among the things they think parents need to be aware of are:
• Their children's class schedules • The school bell schedule • The school calendar • The team list of teachers and their phone numbers • Their child's planner, which contains information about homework, assignments and upcoming projects • Daily student monitoring report, which allows for communication between parents and teachers and makes students responsible for asking their teachers to fill out the form • Dates report cards will be mailed or hand-carried home • The school attendance policy • Times for free after-school tutoring • Graduation requirements • Tips for developing positive attitudes and helping students learn at home "These are probably essential things you should have in a parent survival kit, along with the Tylenol and some kind of tape so you can either tape the students to the chair or tape the parents to the classroom so they'll be prepared and with us," said language-arts teacher Erin Williams.
Ninth-grade coordinator Joell Kerr said the kit is intended to help students get off to a good start in high school. "We find that students who start out the ninth-grade year positively do very well," she said.
This requires parent participation. "If we had to do it all ourselves, the child would not succeed," Kerr said.
Through the packets, parents can learn about school requirements and how to adopt positive attitudes to help children learn at home by asking them questions, facilitating study times and learning together.
The survival kits are given out when parents attend meetings, forums for D or F students, dessert night or any of the other times teachers make themselves available to meet with parents. "We try to do everything possible so they can come in and meet the teachers," Williams said.
The kits can be used to help map out a child's high school career, but it also includes more immediate issues, such as a current class schedule and the dates report cards will be mailed home so children can't hide them.
"A lot of parents do not even know what classes their child is taking, let alone the names of their teachers, and that's why this has turned out to be a real bonus for a lot of parents," said counselor Charlene Masuhara.
The survival kit also comes with phone numbers for all the ninth-grade teachers, as well as an invitation to call any time.
If parents want to find out how their children are doing in class, they can send their child to school with the included daily student monitoring report, which their child must have filled out by every teacher. It works because it requires a commitment from both students and parents, Masuhara said.
"We want the parents to know that this is really about a partnership," she said. "Nothing will happen if we have to be responsible to do everything by ourselves."
Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8014.
They've put it all together in a parent survival kit aimed at parents of freshmen who are almost meeting state academic standards, but also made it available to parents of other freshmen.
Parents in the know
