For 25 minutes, he directs cars and greets students with a smile. Then it's off to work. It was the pig-kissing and the slumber party for 600 that surprised Brenda Gipson. Gipson, who has an MBA, mothballed her business suits to better balance her family life. Still working fulltime, she planned to be involved in her daughters' schools, with bake sales and carnivals.
Parents still chaperone field trips and run school carnivals.
They're on the playground supervising youngsters and in the main office photocopying class assignments. Parents can help students start off the school year right by engaging kids' minds at home. Regardless of income or degrees, educators say, all parents can lay the educational foundation, give pep talks and resurrect routine in their households as the school year begins anew. Ann Jo Beck cried the first time her daughter brought home an F. Laurel Beck had been a good student. But in her first year at Rincon Middle School in Escondido, she began neglecting her homework and leaving projects to the last minute.