Draft Action Research Project Progress Report

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Week 3 Assignment, Part 3

Draft Action Research Project Progress Report

a.            Title – Increasing Parental Involvement will Increase Student Achievement on State Tests and in Our Classrooms

b.            Needs Assessment

The goal of my action research project is to increase special education and socio-economically disadvantaged students’ state assessment results and classroom performances by increasing parental involvement on campus. For the past two consecutive years, our campus has not met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in these demographic areas. We have approximately 839 students on our campus with 107 of these students being classified as special education. Student information and data was collected from many sources, including previous TAKS and/or STAAR test results, including TAKS Accommodated and Modified, information from our Student Review Level (SLR), and DMAC.

c.            Objectives and Vision of the action research project

In order to reach the goal of my action research plan, I first had to organize an action research team to share a common goal and discuss plans of further action. The objective of the project is to find out if parents being more involved in their child’s education will have an adverse effect on their test scores and class grades. The measurable objectives will simply be the number of guardian and parent participants, progress and report card grades during each marking period, and comparison of 2012 and 2013 state assessment results. Parents will be invited onto our campus and into our classrooms to actually have the opportunity to work with their kids. Hopefully, by having parents and guardians showing interest in their children at school, the students will apply themselves more and will experience more success in life.

d.            Review of the Literature and Action Research Strategy

After serving on our Campus Improvement Team, I was shocked at the lack of parental support and participation around our campus.  In today’s world, our kids need parent support at home and school. According to Dorothy Rich, “In this complex world, it takes more than a good school to educate children. And it takes more than a good home. It takes these two major educational institutions working together” (Parent Involvement in Education 2008). Students with a good support team of parents and other family members tend to perform better academically in school. These students tend to set realistic and achievable academic goals for themselves. There are many ways parents and guardians can be involved in the school system. Some of the types of parenting include: “parents as recipients and supports, parents as educators and learners, parents as non-instructional volunteers, parents as instructional volunteers, and parents as decision makers” (Khan 60). One of the biggest issues in education today is a lack of parental support for students, teachers, and administrators. According to the research from The Center for Public Education, “effective parent involvement comes when a true partnership exists between schools and families” (Back to school: How parents involvement affects student achievement 2011).

e.            Articulate the Vision

            After creating an Action Research Parental Involvement Team, I introduced my action research plan to the Campus Improvement Team, District Improvement Team, and our current staff by presenting the groups with a power point presentation displaying our AEIS data and current situation with AYP. I pointed out that our special education population and socio-economic disadvantaged state assessment results and failure analysis from the 2011-2012 school year were considerably lower than the other populations. Communication and updates on progress of our plan were updated on my blog.

f.     Manage the organization

 The Parental Involvement Action Research Team that was established consisted of my site-mentor, special education teachers, diagnosticians, paraprofessionals, and myself. We were all trained on parental involvement in education during a staff development session presented to our campus by our local education center. I took all the responsibility of compiling a list of special education and at-risk students to observe and monitor throughout the school year. The research team took the responsibility of calling parents and guardians to set up observation and participation visits on campus. I tracked individual students’ report card grades from each marking period and state assessment results for comparision. Ultimately, we want to make student learning a top priority and goal for our plan.

g.    Manage Operations

Consensus building among the research team was a challenge. Not every participating member on the team was in agreeance that parent involvement was the issue. My strategy was to show the team our needs assessment data on parental involvement from our Campus Improvement Team. This allowed the group to be able to see our current lack of parent participation on campus. The team met bi-monthly to communicate progress and discuss any changes that need to take place. We used the Force Field Task Analysis to weigh the positives and negatives of this new plan.

h.    Respond to Community Interest and Needs

Having missed AYP for two consecutive years due to our low scores in socio-economic disadvantaged and special education sub-populations, my action research plan is targeted to reach these groups. By using parental involvement as an instructional strategy and intervention, students’ can experience success in school. The completion of this action research plan will benefit many people including: the school, teachers, administrators, and community stakeholders.

References

Dervarics, Chuck and O’Brien, Eileen. (2011). Back to school:how parent involvement affects student achievement. Alexandria, VA: The Center for Public Education. Retrieved from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org.

Khan, Mir Baiz. (1996). Parental Involvement in Education: Possibilities and limitations. The School Community Journal, 6(1), 57-68. Retrieved from http://www.adi.org/journal/ss96/KhanSpring1996.pdf.

Parent Involvement in Education. (2008, June). School Days. Retrieved from         http://www.surfnetparents.com.