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What Parents
Need to Know
from the National PTA website
Original URL:
http://www.pta.org/parentinvolvement/helpchild/hc_piandlaw.asp
According to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), renamed
the No Child Left Behind Act, when signed into law by President Bush
January 8, 2002, all schools that receive Title I dollars in every school
district in America must have a written parent involvement policy. The
policy must be developed jointly with, agreed on with, and distributed to
parents of participating children. It must ensure that successful
strategies that encourage and sustain active parent involvement are in
place in every school.
This resource outlines the provisions in Title I that relate to parent
involvement, and provides parents with sources for additional information
as well as suggestions of what they can do to become involved.
What Is a Title I School?
Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) targets
federal funds to high-poverty communities to provide compensatory
educational services to low-achieving students. These funds are
distributed by a poverty-based formula to approximately 90 percent of
school districts in the nation. Title I schools can use federal funds in a
number of ways—developing assessments, providing professional development
opportunities, offering support services, improving curriculum, and so
forth—to ensure that low-achieving children are able to meet the same high
academic standards all children are expected to meet. Unfortunately,
however, funding for Title I is only sufficient to fully serve about
one-third of all eligible children.
Parent involvement has always been an integral part of Title I. Under the
new law, one of the new purposes of Title I is to ensure that funds are
used to promote parent involvement. Parents should take full advantage of
the opportunities for involvement that the law provides.
Every school receiving Title I money is required to
Develop with parents a written parent involvement policy that is then
distributed to parents and made available to the local community.
Convene a convenient annual meeting of parents to inform them of the
policy and their right to be involved.
Offer flexible parent involvement meetings and, if necessary, with Title I
money provide child care, transportation, or home visits.
Involve parents in an organized and ongoing way in the planning, review,
and improvement of school programs.
Develop with parents a school-parent agreement that outlines actions to be
taken to improve individual student academic achievement.
Increase opportunities for parent involvement in the school by helping
parents understand academic content standards and state academic
achievement standards and assessments.
Provide materials and training for parents, teachers, pupil services
personnel, and other staff to foster greater parent involvement.
Integrate activities with other programs: Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA), English as a Second Language (ESL), Head Start, and
so forth.
Click here to read more from this selection, including "What You Can
Do" and "Additional Resources".
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