Ask Experience Corps members what struggling students need more of to succeed and they speak with one voice: parental involvement. So in recent months, groups of Experience Corps members have taken the initiative to design parent outreach programs that complement and bolster their work as tutors.

Mason, a Cleveland third grader, is glad they did. For the past few months, Mason has been meeting regularly with Experience Corps member Jackie Griffey, a retired teacher, and Griffey has been sending notes home about his progress. Mason brings the notes home, has a parent sign them, then brings them back to Griffey, who shares the notes with Mason’s teacher.

“You should see the look of utter pride on Mason’s face when he brings the notes back to me,” Griffey says.

The exchange is part of a simple program launched this fall by Experience Corps members in Cleveland to communicate with the parents of tutored students about their children’s academic development.  There’s an incentive built in for student and parents -- for successfully delivering five notes, Mason gets a small prize. 

The result of this outreach? There’s regular communication between parents, teacher, and tutor – without adding to teachers’ long list of responsibilities – and, as researchers have long noted, kids do better.

“Children’s chances for success in school and in life increase dramatically when their families are involved,” says Experience Corps CEO John S. Gomperts.  “Experience Corps members have the time, leadership skills, creativity, connections, and desire to build bridges between parents and schools. It’s just one more way they can help kids achieve and strengthen the community.”

The Cleveland program is one example, but Experience Corps members around the country have been creative in designing parent outreach efforts in other cities as well.  Here are a few examples of other programs they’ve organized:

• Two Experience Corps members in San Francisco have launched a bilingual newsletter in the city’s Mission district to help Spanish-speaking parents get involved in the life of the school.  Enrique Bachinelo writes the newsletter in Spanish, and his wife Frances Payne translates it into English and distributes it to the community.

• Boston Experience Corps members use a note-delivery system similar to Cleveland’s to keep parents up to date on a child’s progress in tutoring sessions with Corps members. The notes include contact information for the tutor in case the parent has questions.

• In Port Arthur, Texas, Experience Corps hosts annual “Show & Tale” events, where parents come in during school hours to watch their children read stories aloud to their classmates.  Open house events are also held in the evening for parents to meet with tutors and discuss their children’s progress.

• Experience Corps in Philadelphia hosts a series of “Parent and Family Breakfasts” where hundreds of parents, tutors, teachers, and principals gather to discuss the roles each can play in the students’ academic development.

“The tutoring and mentoring that Experience Corps members do is tremendously beneficial for students and schools,” notes Gomperts. “We expect that the results will be even better when Experience Corps members get parents more involved in their children’s learning.”

Contact Experience Corps in your city for details about other parent involvement efforts.

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