School Family

If you’re not a data wonk, feel free to skip right over this blog post, but this information certainly at least deserves a highlight here. The federal government is out with a comprehensive study of parent involvement habits of K-12 parents nationwide.

Complete parent involvement study is here.

Highlights:

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  About 54 percent of students in grades K through 12 had parents who reported receiving notes or email from the school specifically about their child; 91 percent had parents who reported receiving newsletters, memos, or notices addressed to all parents; and 49 percent had parents who reported that the school had contacted them by telephone.

• A higher percentage of students in nonreligious private schools (66 percent) had parents who reported that their children’s school communicated with them via notes or e-mails compared to students in other types of schools (assigned public: 53 percent; chosen public: 56 percent).

• Ninety-two percent of students in grades K through 12 had parents who reported receiving any information from the school on the student’s performance; 83 percent had parents who received any information about how to help with homework; 75 percent had parents who received any information about why the student was placed in particular groups or classes; and 86 percent had parents who received any information about the parents’ expected role at the student’s school.

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  Eighty-nine percent of students in grades K through 12 had parents who reported that an adult member of the household had attended a general school or a parent-teacher organization or association (PTO/PTA) meeting since the beginning of the school year (table 3). Seventy-eight percent had parents who attended a regularly scheduled parent-teacher conference; 74 percent had parents who attended a school or class event; 46 percent had parents who volunteered or served on a school committee; and 65 percent had parents who participated in school fundraising. (more…)

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’re probably aware that we’re in the midst of a Hollywood baby boom. These days, celebrity magazines are almost as likely to show the rich and famous pushing
strollers as strolling the red carpet.

Today’s celebrity parents are a hands-on group. Angelina Jolie is frequently seen walking her kids to school, and it seems the paparazzi can always find Tom Cruise at his son’s baseball games. Even Pamela Anderson, who usually makes headlines for more risque reasons, bragged at the Cannes Film Festival last month about her school volunteer work.

In Cannes to promote her new movie, Blonde and Blonder, Anderson told the London Sun newspaper that despite her public image, her two sons don’t think of her as a sex symbol.

“They know I’m at school with the neon vest parking cars and doing safety patrol,” she said.

Some may be surprised to hear about Anderson’s volunteer role, but it only makes sense that she would take up school safety patrol duty after the years she spent patrolling the beach and saving lives on the TV show Baywatch.

Another celebrity parent, Jane Kaczmarek, is best known for portraying a TV mom—Lois on Malcolm in the Middle. She talked with us about how she stays involved in the education of her three children, including being a driver for elementary school field trips and serving hot lunches with other parents.

Since the Hollywood baby boom shows no signs of slowing down, I can only imagine the celebrity gossip items we’ll be reading about a few years from now. Perhaps Britney Spears bringing cookies to the PTO bake sale or Brad Pitt making Sno-Kones at field day?