Building Partnerships Owsley Elementary employs a full-time coordinator for parent involvement, Pam Chandler. The school has also made space for a Parent Center. In the Parent Center, volunteers work at tables and office machines, but some also go to classrooms to work as aides. Chandler says the number of parent volunteers has roughly doubled over the past five years. She estimates that 10 to 15 parents work at the school on any given day and that, over the course of a school year, about 150 different individuals, both parents and other community members, contribute significant amounts of time.
Teachers are grateful for the extra hands.
Fourth-grade teacher Kim Johnson says parent volunteers in the schools are helpful for children who, for a variety of reasons, receive little help at home. Carolyn Jackson, a second-grade teacher, says the help from volunteers enables her to spend more time on lessons. She adds that the participation of volunteers reinforces the school's efforts to raise academic standards, particularly with parents whose expectations for their children might otherwise be low. I can remember in the past you didn't see a parent unless there was a problem. Chandler's efforts started in the late 1980s with the Parent Intervention program, designed to teach parenting and teaching skills to parents whose school experiences may have been short and unsatisfactory.