Case Analysis Issues Concerning School Families Relationship.docx

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY This research tackles the effect of Romania’s transition to market economy that leads to social and economic alarming processes; and as a consequence created family imbalance and parents’ decreasing involvement in children education and school – family partnerships. According to the research, a brief diagnosis of school – family partnership in rural education context indicates two major possible risks; namely the quality of school – family cooperation that could be influenced by the educational and financial low level of children’s families and second by the psycho – pedagogical decreasing training of teachers. It is the researcher’s intention then to draw attention to the negative influences of social economic changes in Romania on school – family partnership, especially in rural area. The objective of this research is to investigate the school – family partnership issue within rural areas, in order to improve it by proposing an initiation program based on various new strategies to be implemented in schools. These are based on social psychology research; as a human relationship, teacher – parent relationship. It is also the researcher’s intention to identify the degree of involvement, frequency and perception of parents in carrying out school – family partnership, analyze obstacles and parents difficulties to contact the school/teachers and to identify the initiator and the methods used in school – family partnership. A survey was then conducted to 316 parents from two rural areas. Taking into account only parents of students enrolled in secondary grades. On one hand, parents’ interest in children’s school activities has decreased when children moved to secondary school; on the other hand, early school drop has increased four times in secondary education, compared to primary education. It was stated that the reason why rural area was the research locale because of three reasons: first, educational achievements are lower in rural than in urban area, second, the number of children from poor families and Roma families is higher in rural areas and third, the school from rural areas face the lack of qualified personnel or a much higher migration of the personnel compared to urban schools. These were all collected using focused group interview with teachers for the perception of obstacles encountered when implementing the school – family partnerships and a questionnaire addressed to children’s parents on their perception, intensity frequency, initiation, difficulties and strategies for developing school – family partnership. The significant findings from the study were as follows: 1. Parents’ disinterest and their lack of responsibility towards child’s school activity were brought about by their low level of education, their young age and their lack of maturity. Another possible reason is that some of the parents work abroad and the children are raised by their grandparents or other relatives. Therefore they are foreseeing that their children would follow them in the future, thus the lack of interest towards local school. 2. From the parent’s perspective, the school is a mean to obtain a diploma that would allow their children to engage in national and international labor market, losing sight of the fundamental role of the school – that is to train people to become independent, responsible, adaptable and creative personalities. The difficulties in establishing a school- family partnership is brought about by parents’ lack of time, lack of confidence in the educational system, hostile attitude, large number of family members and health problems.

3. Most of the investigated parents complain that they have no time for their own child or contact the school because of work or house holding absorbs them totally. 4. Regarding the initiator of teacher – parents meeting, most parents demonstrated that the primary role of the school is to cooperate with the parents. The researcher observed that education is an exclusive task of the school and the family does not consider itself an essential player in the process. 5. The forms of school – family relationship have remained traditional; most parents see it as a mere meeting with the teachers. This is because teachers are already loaded with school works, and they no longer have the time, energy and willingness to collaborate with parents, thus traditional methods are also applied. The research ended with a recommendation to have a training to resolve school – family partnership issues for both parents and teachers. They recommended that teacher’s attitude should be positive, open, flexible, based on trust and respect for the experience and views of parents. Reducing the norm of teaching and involving the staff in secondary education services will also help ensure the facility and efficiency of the partnership with families. LESSONS LEARNED So what are my learnings from this article, first, educational partnerships are needed the provision of quality education. This holds true even for school – family relationships. Second, an optimal relationship between the school and family will not only benefit the students, but as well as the institution. Effective ‘school – families’ partnership requires a strong commitment from both parties. This is to ensure that the said relationship can help the students reach their full potential in school. But for this to happen, efforts must be exerted by schools to reach out and build genuine relationship with their students’ family. Third, families must understand that ‘educating’ their children is not only the school’s responsibility. Cooperation and collaboration is the key to make the intention work. Lastly, there must be a sustainability program attached to the intention to develop any kind of educational partnership. This kind of program must outlast the administrators, teachers, parents, students and all educational stakeholders in the institution.

Reference: Margaritoiu, Alina and Eftimie, Simona (2011). Some issues concerning school – families partnership. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences pp. 42-46

2

|