Parent Involvement Policy Compliance & Evaluation Guidance. Parent Involvement: Fill & Download for Free

In my experience school practices to involve parents are very limited in the level of involvement they allow. I've not seen schools work to involve parents in decision-making at the school. Teacher candidates are Not interviewed by a parents'' committee. New school rules are made by the school - they're not brought to a parents' meeting for parent input. The new school principal was hired by the district without any parent input.What school practices are you referring to? Sending home a notice that parents should make sure their child's homework isn't completed? Or the 'contracts'? The 'contracts" that parents are expected to sign agreeing to do what the teacher requires of them?Schools seek to have parents be compliant to the school's expectations of parents. Is compliance meaningful involvement? Your question would be more accurately written as - Do school policies and practices to achieve parental compliance result in greater levels of compliance?

Details from the comments:I took ENGL 110 and 120 my junior year as dual credits so I wouldn’t have to take it this year but now they are attempting to make me take it anyway.Actually, I’ve been talking to my guidance counselor and she agrees that I shouldn’t have to take it, but according to our administration it’s up to my English teacher to decide if I don’t have to take it.How is it up to your English teacher to determine the graduation requirements for your high school diploma? Isn’t your guidance counselor supposed to know the school rules???Something is seriously wrong here. Your school registrar should be able to explain to you what credit you get for each course, and whether those 110 and 120 courses count toward your graduation requirements.I think you need to get your parents involved. Your parents should call the principal or send an email and ask for a clarification on the course credit policy, and ask the principal to determine whether you’ve fulfilled the English courses requirement by taking those 110 and 120 courses. If your parents aren’t satisfied with the explanation, they should mention that they are going to contact the school district and ask the district to look into your school rules and practices and determine whether or not it’s in compliance with the district policies.

Affiliation disclaimer: I am a retired lawyer and used to professionally counsel parents on educational/parenting subjects including bullying. The following is intended to educate parents generally to become the best educational advocates for their children. It is not intended to be specific legal advice, and for specific legal advice relevant to your particular fact situation, please seek legal counsel.I like Kate Simmons's ideas. Your response as parents will be determined by the severity and frequency of the event(s) of bullying which are occurring. To read about bullying and its impacts, see the very general Wikipedia article, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying. Part of what you need to do is become very educated about the subject.Also:Make sure your child is okay, safe, and unafraid. Do what you need to do. This is your first priority. Next...Document. Every single thing. Keep a journal. Include thoughts, feelings, statements, actions, and all impacts relating to the bullying incident(s). Describe what happened by date and time. Who was there? Who saw it happening? What was said? What were they wearing? Where did this occur? When? How? How frequently? Keep it organized by date. Keep it up to date.Incident Control. Write a letter to the teacher(s) who are tasked with your child's safety and welfare, cc the principal and (if you feel your letter will be ignored, send a copy also to the head of your school district -- ) and whichever other staff are involved. The letter should describe the event(s), dates and times of their occurrences, and their impact(s). It should also suggest and request a resolution to be reached to stop the bullying. The resolution should be one which is agreeable to the school, and to your child and you. It should end with requesting an appointment, and be written without emotion or rancor to the extent possible. You want to sound as if you are being reasonable while your child is being bullied (!). You get more flies with honey... try to gain everyone's cooperation with your reasonable requests. (That said, if you have already followed all the steps in this answer and are convinced the school and school district will not help you to stop an ongoing and pervasive bullying environment (a very, very rare occurrence) you can publicize your story on local news, newspapers, blogs, etc. Just be certain you are not libeling or slandering anyone. That is, everything must be totally true and you want to avoid invading anyone's privacy. I would recommend seeking legal counsel in this case before using the atomic bomb of media attention...so it doesn't backfire and you end up embroiled in a lawsuit for defamation.).Set an appointment. It is up to you as parents/holders of your children's educational rights to defend them. This means that you face the school staff and create an outcome for your child so that his or her educational focus remains on learning. Bullying can impact learning by causing fear which impacts a student's focus; in such cases, bullying impacts a child's educational rights to access the curriculum.Request that the principal establish a written anti-bullying/anti-harassment policy at your school if one does not already exist. If it does exist, read it. Is it adequate? If not, change it and have all parents sign it. This policy should go home with parents immediately upon completion of the writing of the policy, and again at the beginning of every school semester, and should require a parent's signature so that every parent reads the behavior expected and teaches their children how to comply with it.Enforcement of Anti-Bullying/Anti-Harassment Policy. Be sure that any such policy has enforcement provisions and consequences for its violation that are serious enough to cause compliance with it.Learn More! Every parent learning to be an advocate has to continue to learn as much as possible about how to protect our children's educational rights. Here is the U.S. Department of Education's analysis of Bullying, by state: http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/bullying/state-bullying-laws/state-bullying-laws.pdf.Connect with other advocates to see what they are doing -- Wright's Law: http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/ferpa.confid.bully.htm.Seek counsel/contact a lawyer immediately if your reasonable parental efforts (described above) fail to stop the bullying which is, in your opinion, causing unreasonable harm to your child.