In efforts to increase parent involvement, I decided to offer a Dine & Discuss Luncheon! This involved inviting kindergarten parents to come eat lunch with their child while they learned more about RESPONSIBILITY. A permission form went home asking parents to RSVP and bring a brown sack lunch with them on the day of the luncheon. Parents filled out a RESPONSIBILITY SURVEY with their child as they ate lunch. Luckily, two school counselors from our Counseling Team agreed to help out! The lunch took place in the Kindergarten classroom. After lunch we played a game of RESPONSIBILITY BINGO. We had time to play two games and winners received prizes. Before leaving parents completed an evaluation. A table was set up full of info regarding RESPONSIBILITY. We included articles and chore charts.
We got great feedback from our evaluations! We plan to use their helpful comments to make our next Dine & Discuss even better! Next time, we plan to hold the luncheon in the gym for more space. We also decided we will send the students back to class after lunch and spend more time with the parents discussing the topic. This decision was based on the parents' requests! We were so excited to see parents so engaged in their child's education! I'm excited to plan and make improvements for our next Dine & Discuss!
What are some of the demographic details of your school? Rural/suburban/urban? What kind of SES do many of your students come from? This sounds like an awesome idea but I wonder if I would get the same type of response from our parents...
ReplyDeleteSara,
ReplyDeleteMy school is in a rural setting with over half on free and reduced lunch. We are in a county that has the highest unemployment rate in the state. I was really impressed with our outcome. I do wonder if we would get the same response with older grades?