Parent Leadership/In and Out of School

This new, combined DVD package brings you two programs, Parent Leadership and In and Out of School, to help foster family involvement and parent leadership in your school.

Parent Leadership gives you a close-up look at a series of parent leadership workshops and schoolwide family involvement projects involving  elementary and middle school parent-teacher leadership teams. Featured workshops cover:

• what is parent involvement?;
• barriers to parent involvement;
• keys to leadership;
• three complete community-building activities;
• taking parent involvement projects from plans to reality;
• celebration through publication.

The video documents the dynamic interactions possible when teachers and parents work together to support children's learning in and out of the classroom. If you are looking for ways to build parent leadership in your classroom, school, or district, the numerous creative strategies for achieving this leadership will be particularly helpful. In addition, Parent Leadership: 'It Doesn't Happen Just Because You Say So' will inspire you with the energy, commitment, and good humour of the parent and teacher participants and renew your sense of family involvement possibilities.

The Parent Project adventure continues in the two practical and motivational projects included in In and Out of School. The first project, 2 + 2 Is More Than 4 documents a series of workshops, celebrations and presentations in which parents become better acquainted with maths standards as they learn how to support their children's maths literacy at home. A highlight of this project is a community-wide Maths Carnival in which hundreds of families discover that solving everyday maths problems can be fun. In the second project, parents take a journey Into the Wild of Chicago's urban natural world—from the muddy banks of the Chicago River to the school garden compost heap. As they observe, question, sketch, write and share, these  parents become guides and teachers, transforming traditional classroom science instruction into an inspiring community building experience. Both video projects demonstrate how much can be gained when parents become partners in their children's learning.