Partnering with parents and a school district.
Parents First is Chester Eastside’s workshop series for parents of
children in the early grades in 2014, Parents First will be a joint venture
between Chester Eastside and the Chester Upland School District. Its mission: giving parents the tools to
assure their children’s success in school.
What Parents First is all about.
It’s as simple as ABC. A, education is recognized as the key to a
child’s making it in the world as an adult, especially children growing up in
Chester. B, the earliest years are critical to what happens in the rest of a
child’s school career and beyond. And C, parents are a child’s first and in
many ways most important teacher.
It works this way: Twenty or so parents of children in grades
pre-kindergarten through three attend ten weekly workshops led by experienced
educators They cover everything from convincing parents that their children can
really succeed in school if they get the right kind of support at home to showing
them how to get the most out of regular contact with the classroom teacher.
Meanwhile, their children engage in activities designed to complement what the
parents are getting. Again, it’s experienced educators doing the teaching. Ten
weeks is not a very long time, but we have found Parents First to get results
that were still evident months after the end of the series. Parents spending more
time reading with their children, having higher expectations yet more positive
feelings about them, and becoming more involved with the teacher. Children doing
better in school, both in terms of academic performance and things like
attendance and classroom behavior.
Teaming up with the school district is a big plus for everybody.
The Chester Upland School District will be helpful in reaching out
to parents. We’ll be working with teachers and supporting their efforts. The
partnership will also make it easier to measure the results of our joint
efforts. The partnership is thus a big win-win for Chester Eastside and for
the Chester Upland School District - but most of all, for those parents and
children.
Chester Eastside
610-872-4812
• Meeting basic human needs
• Helping people of all ages be
all that they can be
• Working for a more just society
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