Editorials

The home-school connection par excellence

Dec 7, 2006 2:33 PM

Education, as any teacher knows, begins and ends at home. Without the commitment and involvement of a child’s family, there is only so much a school can do. All too often, teachers are forced to live with that frustrating limitation — frustrating for them, tragic for the child. But in this city, while those small tragedies continue, there is a countervailing force that has been successfully bringing more and more parents into the education partnership that their children need. And last month this effort was in full view, once again, as 3,600 parents made this year’s Dial-A-Teacher-sponsored Parent Conference another record-setting event.

These annual conferences do more than help parents learn how to help their kids —although that is a vitally important part of the event. Yes, they provide solid, much-needed information and helpful techniques for parents to assist their children. There were, for example, workshops and seminars on a variety of topics, ranging from helping boys achieve to understanding math. Parents learned techniques for applying to college and for coping with the ever-present frustrations of parenting without losing their cool.

But most important, these conferences create an atmosphere of cooperation between school and home, between parents and teachers. And in such an environment there are only winners: the parents, the teachers, the schools — but chiefly, of course, the kids.