Term of Award

Spring 2009

Degree Name

Doctor of Education in Education Administration (Ed.D.)

Document Type and Release Option

Dissertation (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Leadership, Technology, and Human Development

Committee Chair

Linda M. Arthur

Committee Member 1

Cherry Brewton

Committee Member 2

Saba Jallow

Abstract

For decades, parental involvement has had a direct impact on the success of children. Portions of the No Child Left Behind Act include important requirements for schools, districts, and states to organize programs for parental involvement and to implement ways to communicate with parents and the public about student achievement and the quality and performance of schools. According to Gonzalez (2002), teachers and administrators struggle with the lack of parental involvement on a daily basis. He concludes that finding ways to make parents feel more comfortable and welcome would improve the communication and relationship between parents and schools. The purpose of this study was to explore what prevents and promotes parental involvement in schools. It was the intent of this study to determine whether the school is implementing practices that promote parental involvement. This study provided data that helped the school district adhere to the parental involvement portion of NCLB that encourage schools to work with parents on becoming and staying involved with the education of their children. The methodology employed to collect data in this study was a focus group, parent interviews, and student surveys with open-ended questions. The pool of twenty-one purposive sample participants in this study included two from each of the following categories: the elementary schools, the middle and the high schools; administrators and county office personnel; six parents and six students from elementary, middle and high school in a Northeast Georgia school district. The analysis of data in this study revealed the following themes; communication, reliability, accountability and responsibility, and emotional support promotes parental involvement; and lack of time, lack of education, lack of language proficiency, lack of maturity, and lack of active involvement are the barriers revealed that prevented parental involvement. The result of these findings indicated schools, parents, and students recognized the importance of home-school relationships and were willing to work towards establishing partnerships. The data from this study correlated with the research questions and indicated that promoting parental involvement would aid in the success of schools and students in a Northeast Georgia school district. When schools promote parental involvement by action and not just in word, no child will be left behind.

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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