Hi
Does your budget include $$ for In House Enrichment? We worked with the teachers to bring programs (specifically classroom programs) for Science in support of state testing. This has worked well. There are numerous in house residency programs re: writing that you could explore and bring into the school. Many of these programs offer different mechanisms to engage kids in writing. The teachers have probably analyzed the "challenging" areas - with that information you could align programs that would support the teacher's effort to address those specific areas.
I wonder as well if the PTO could sponsor "writing" contests?
The test scores for our schools were just released here today, and I was dismayed to discover that our writing scores didn't meet state standards. I was wondering what, if anything, your parent groups have done to help increase student test scores? I'm hoping to get together a list of ways that our group could help to take to the principal.
So far the only ideas that I have is to make sure that the kids are all eating something healthy and high in protein before each test, recruiting parent volunteers to help with tutoring and the like, getting parents to volunteer to supervise extra recesses between tests during testing week, and offering to assist in financing additional training/curriculum items for the teachers.
Has anyone had any luck in finding strategies that lend themselves to parent group contributions that work?
