Educational Research Service Making a Difference in Our Children’s Future 
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Educational Research Service Making a Difference in Our Children’s Future
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ERS Successful School Practices
A selection of successful practices, programs, and ideas contributed by school districts to the ERS Successful School Practices Collection and announced in the ERS periodical, Successful School Practices, mailed to ERS Comprehensive subscribers three times a year.
Spring 2001
Family Night Boosts Immigrant
Students’ Success
Through Active Parent Involvement
Randolph Elementary School, Arlington County Public Schools, Virginia
Serving a Diverse Community—Challenges and Rewards
Randolph Elementary School is located in Arlington, Virginia, an ethnically diverse community just outside Washington DC. The school’s 600 students speak more than 22 different primary languages, and English is the second language of most of them. About 64 percent of the students are Hispanic, and about 80 percent are from non-English-speaking homes.
Educators at Randolph are firmly committed to the belief that children who come to school with limited English can achieve high academic standards. The “achievement gap” often seen for these children is not a situation to be accepted, but a challenge to be overcome. An important element of ensuring high achievement for the school’s large immigrant population is family involvement.
In fact, Principal Kathy Panfil has found that interacting with and involving the parents of immigrant children is one of the most rewarding parts of her job. These parents bring to America a belief in hard work and the value of education. Their children “are cultural strengths for the whole school,” says Panfil. And getting these children off to the right start, from their kindergarten year on, can foster their success throughout school.
Establishing a Program to Reach Out to Immigrant Parents
Three years ago, Randolph teachers Linda Smith and Sharon Schafer initiated an evening program to promote the school involvement of non-English speaking parents. Called Family Night School, this program is designed to make families of immigrant children entering school more comfortable with the school, and to help them make learning an integral part of their family lives.
When it began, the program enrolled only those kindergarten children who were most at risk of school difficulty—those who had no preschool experience, whose families were non-English speaking, and who qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. Today, although these criteria are not strictly applied, most Family Night School participants (and indeed most of the school’s kindergarten population) meet the same guidelines.
Parents are recruited for the program by personal phone calls—sometimes multiple phone calls. The friendly relationships established by these personal conversations are essential in encouraging parents to attend the sessions, says Principal Panfil. The phone contacts are made by community liaison Gloria Martinez and school secretary Patricia Violand, two bilingual staff members who also provide translation at each Family Night School session. The program teachers include developers Linda Smith and Sharon Schafer, as well as retired teacher Helen Henzler, who currently coordinates the program.
Content of the Family Night School Sessions
The Family Night School is offered in several sessions each year, with each session consisting of about five meetings. Because the school’s population is highly mobile, the winter session serves families who have entered after the beginning of the school year. The typical session consists of the following activities.
A Family Dinner. Each meeting during the fall and winter sessions begins with a catered community dinner, provided by host families arranged by the PTA. The final meeting of the session is a Fiesta Celebration in which all the parents bring dishes from their homelands to share.
Parent Training. Parents are given information about how they can help their children develop age-appropriate cognitive and social skills needed in school. Parents are taught to value play, consistency, routine, and predictability as essential elements of their child’s development. They learn the importance of conversation to language and literacy.
In addition, meetings focus on the parent-school relationship. Parents learn how to have useful parent-teacher conferences, how to understand report cards, and how to discuss their child’s progress.
For example, the first session in fall 2000 included a guided tour of the school itself. The procedures for signing students in and out were reviewed, and the use of the clinic and the procedures for dispensing medications were explained. The parents visited the library and discussed the importance of knowing what their child is reading and encouraging the child to share books at home. The Computer Specialist explained his role in the school and the importance of technology in children’s lives.
Children’s Instruction. While their parents attend the information sessions, kindergarten children engage in stories, songs, journal writing, and other activities designed to encourage their reading readiness skills, foster their language development, and encourage imagination and recall. Hands-on activities focus on a theme such as letters, shapes, numbers, sounds, and eye-hand coordination in writing and coloring.
Paired Parent-Child Activities. Following the separate meetings for parents and children, the two groups come together for play-based sessions that integrate the learning that occurred in their separate sessions. (for example, mathematics games such as Math Bingo, Odd and Even, and Guess the Number). At one session, a public librarian (who had earlier talked with parents about the opportunities at their public libraries) modeled how to read a story to the children and encourage dialogue with the children for comprehension and language development. Parents are provided with follow-up activities that they can do with their children without reading or writing English. They are also provided with a bag of supplies that can be used at home, including a picture Spanish-English dictionary for children, scissors, glue, crayons, books, number cards, letter cards, and practice sheets for writing.
Homework Club/Child Care. Siblings of the participating kindergarten children are provided with their own educational activities, thus freeing their parents from having to arrange home child care.
Additional activities such as field trips are sometimes part of the Family Night School. For example, during the fall 2000 session, families went on a field trip to Cox Farm, a popular local site that includes cornfields and acres of land devoted to children’s activities, such as haystacks, a maze, and a petting zoo. This activity offered a rich variety of new experiences that families could discuss.
Results of the Program
Although it is virtually impossible to differentiate the role that the Family
Night School has played independently in the progress of Randolph’s immigrant
children, educators and parents at the school feel that the program does play
a positive role.
Parents were asked for their evaluation of the program at the final fall session.
Their comments included:
“I especially appreciated the assistance in gaining library cards and access to this resource.”
“My husband went to the session on reading skills. Now he is much
more interested in coming home and spending
time with the children. The session gave him confidence to work with his children
at home.”
“The math games give parents the opportunity to talk more with their children and build patterns.”
“The field trip was an excellent opportunity for parents to be with
their children and watch them interact with the
environment.”
The school has found that, although involving immigrant and non-English speaking parents offers special challenges, it also yields rewards that are bound to pay off for children whose cultural backgrounds might otherwise put them at risk of school failure. As the school’s summary of the fall 2000 session states, “Success is sensed from being there, working with the parents and students, and watching their comfort level with the school setting grow over time.”
For more information about Randolph Elementary School’s Family Night School, contact:
Helen Henzler, Program Coordinator,
or Linda Smith, ESL Specialist
Randolph Elementary School
1306 S. Quincy Street
Arlington, VA 22204
Tel: 703-228-5830
Contributed by:
Kathy Panfil, Principal
Randolph Elementary School
Arlington County Public Schools
Arlington, Virginia
(enrollment 18,500)
Superintendent:
Robert G. Smith
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Copyright © 2001 Educational Research Service. All rights reserved.
