Standard 7

	Standard 7. Family, Community, and Professional Partnerships in a Diverse Society
7.1	View students’ families as partners in their work
7.2	Understand that academic success is fostered by strong communication, shared goals and mutually reinforcing practices
7.3	Understand that motivation and sense of well-being in classrooms is supported by affirmation of students’ homes and cultures
7.4	Define professional responsibilities to include commitment to growth/development of colleagues, settings, profession & communities
7.5	Familiar with legal, ethical, and policy issues
7.6	Understand importance of advocating for children, families and themselves in a variety of professional, political and policy-making contexts.

Student’s academic careers and success are affected by many factors. As Standard Seven states, these factors can include their families, cultures, communities and teachers. First and foremost, families and teachers play a crucial role in the over arching academic success of a child. A child’s teacher is constantly working to provide the student with the best learning environment. While, ideally, a child’s parent is constantly communicating with the teacher and sharing short and long term goals. In general, I find the relationship between families and teachers extremely important to the learning process. Working as a team, the classroom teacher, and parent can provide the best academic experience possible, and advocate for exactly what the student needs to be successful.

When planning for the academic success of their students, teachers need to be aware of the family’s past and present stories, culture and the community each child stems from. In order for this to happen, a relationship needs to be built. Teacher-family relationships can start with teachers teaching the students and their parents how to be actively engaged and excited about learning. Of course, the teachers must also be just as excited about the learning process and want to invest time into fostering this classroom community. In my practicum experience, I attended staff or “Business Meetings” every Tuesday morning. At these meetings they discussed school policy, outside educational opportunities for students, and professional development opportunities. The principal often reports back on meetings attended and offers to make copies of the notes for teachers who are interested. Artifact 7A is a copy of a Business Meeting agenda. Joyce L. Epstein writes in Educational Leadership, the importance of a school becoming a learning community emphasizing the necessary teamwork of principals, teachers, parents, students and community partners. I consistently witness the faculty at Mission Hill operating as a team and it benefits the student’s educational experience greatly.

Within my classroom at Mission Hill, I witnessed great communication between the teacher, students and parents. My classroom teacher had all the family’s home and cell (if available) numbers posted by her desk. A phone call home, or a text message directly to the caregivers cell phone could take a variety of meanings. Mary Cowhey, author of Black Ants and Buddhists built her schedule so that she was available for parent/guardian conversation every morning. The student would walk into her classroom and immediately know their jobs and responsibilities. That left Cowhey available for parent/guardian conversation. Also, Cowhey constructed a bulletin board inside her classroom to alert parents to the “helper jobs” they could attended to.  At Mission Hill parents are frequent visitors in the morning or in the afternoon before pick up. Other means of communication were parent-teacher conferences and narrative style report cards. In February, I was able to sit in on a parent-teacher conference. After the student gave the parent a classroom tour and showcased some of her work, the teacher, parent, student and I sat down for about a twenty minute conversation. Artifact 7B is the notes from the meeting. During the conversation, areas of strength, weakness, and goals were discussed. The parent stated that the student is very inquisitive at home, but sometimes hesitates at school to ask questions in front of students. The parents and teacher agrees to make that a personal goal for the student to work on. The student also stated that it is hard for her to be “neat” when she writes because she is going so fast. The teacher stated that along with quantity, quality is important. Also the teacher suggested using a writing web to help the student organize thoughts. The parent acknowledged this suggestion and thought it was a great idea.

At Mission Hill there is also a strict policy regarding the celebration of birthdays and holidays. Included as Artifact 7C is a photocopy of the policy that is sent out in the weekly newsletter at the beginning of the semester. The school does not celebrate any holidays or birthdays. As I began to learn through my experience there, this policy was in place for several reasons. The most important being the schools effort to recognize the various traditions of all families during this special time. Students at Mission Hill come from a variety of cultures and thus not all children celebrate and observe holidays and birthdays. However, the school does invite families to come into the classrooms and take the opportunity to educate their child’s peers on the way their family spends these special times. This, again, truly demonstrates the continuous effort to make the teaching and learning a team effort.