Parents are their child's first and most important teachers. Therefore, strong support from both the home and the school is critical, especially for students who are performing below grade level.

The OHS Parent Involvement Program was developed with this in mind. It involves District staff, school personnel, and parents in a unified effort to help each student achieve success at Orangewood.

To support parent involvement at Orangewood High School, school staff will:

1. Involve parents as active participants in their child's education and help them learn to monitor their child's progress and work with educations to improve their child's performance by means of:

· parent advisory
· informal discussion groups
· newsletters
· "Parent Day" on campus
· information meetings

2. Provide materials and training to parents to encourage strong parent involvement.

3. Train staff to work successfully with parents, including how to use classroom volunteers
effectively.

4. Develop roles for community-based organizations and businesses, such as:

· Adopt-a-School programs
· scholarship donation
· community volunteers serving as tutors/mentors

5. To the extent possible, communicate with parents in a language they understand.

6. Conduct one annual meeting and a flexible number of other meetings, which are scheduled at times that are convenient for parents. Consideration should be given to:

· alternating morning and evening meetings or offering both
· offering incentives for participating
· attending conferences and visiting other districts to learn ways to increase parent involvement

7. Provide parents with:

· timely information about Title I and other special programs
· school performance profiles and their child's individual assessment results
· explanation of the school's curriculum and assessments
· timely responses to parents' suggestions

8. Involve parents in planning, reviewing, and improving programs

9. In collaboration with parents, develop a written school-parent compact that outlines:

· the school's responsibility to provide high-quality curriculum and instruction
· the parents' responsibility to support learning, such as:
- monitoring attendance
- monitoring homework completion
- limiting television watching
- volunteering in the classroom
- encouraging positive use of extracurricular time
· the importance of communication, which includes
- frequent progress reports to parents
- reasonable access to staff and opportunities to volunteer and observe in the classroom

This compact will be disseminated to parents during intake meetings.

10. Consider creative alternatives to ensure that parents have sufficient opportunities to confer with teachers regarding their child's progress, including:

· in-home conferences (on a highly selective basis)
· email communication
· telephone conferences

11. Conduct an annual evaluation of the Parent Involvement Program to determine its effectiveness and to identify barriers to greater participation by parents, giving particular attention to parents who are:

· economically disadvantaged
· disabled
· limited English proficient
· limited in literacy
· of an ethnic or racial minority

12. Review results of the annual evaluation with staff and parents and revise the Parent Involvement Program if necessary.

The Parent Involvement Policy will be included in the School Plan so its implementation will be integrated with all improvement efforts at the school. The Policy and resulting School Plan strategies will be revised as needed, based upon results of the annual District and site evaluations of the Parent Involvement Program.