According to Henderson et al., in Fortress Schools staff members minimize the importance of building strong relationships with parents. In fact, parents are perceived to be more of a bother than a support. Such schools engage in scant, if any, outreach to parents. Teachers feel as though they can “do it on their own” and prefer not to be “bothered” by parents.

In Come-If-We-Call Schools, partnering with parents is situational and selective. The welcome mat is rolled out only when the school feels it needs parental support. Come-If-We-Call Schools feel that parents are better suited to help their children at home and should approach the school only if and when school staff members request they do so. In other words, “Don’t call us; we’ll call you.”

The third type of school, the Open-Door School, has a more cordial air, but staff members reach out to parents only when the parents ask them to do so, such requests usually occurring on the heels of negative academic or behavior reports.

I recall few schools that actually display the attributes of Partnership Schools. Parents are valued and perceived as an essential resource to the school’s mission: “Every Student a Success.” These schools persistently engage in initiatives that Henderson et al. contend characterize Partnership Schools: conducting home visits, connecting family activities to what students are learning, engaging parents in a review of student work and test results, soliciting community group participation in tutoring and homework programs, involving families in all major school decisions and engaging parent groups in ways to improve student achievement. These schools not only witness an improvement in student achievement from year to year, but they also tend to have healthier overall school climates with high levels of staff morale and greater family as well as community support.

If student academic success increases as parent involvement increases, why aren’t all schools Partnership Schools? Arguably some schools are hampered by circumstances within their environments that over time combine to confound efforts to engage in meaningful partnering. However, given today’s research regarding the benefits of effective home-school partnering, all schools should be developing plans to increase parental involvement. The federal No Child Left Behind law requires that all students achieve proficiency in reading and math by 2014 regardless of race, ethnicity, disability, economic status or English-speaking ability. Schools must muster every strategy available to them, one of the most powerful and effective being parental involvement, to meet this challenge.

Back in the 1970s, when I first embarked on my professional journey, little was known about the connection between parent involvement and student success. We now know that Partnership Schools, those that engage parents in the learning process, realize better student results than the other types of schools described in Beyond the Bake Sale. Thus, it is imperative that schools make the changes necessary to become such schools. The times demand it; the kids deserve it.

Mark S. Lewis, Ed.D., is director of the Pennsylvania Parent Information and Resource Center in Camp Hill. He has more than 30 years of experience in the public school setting as a secondary English teacher, principal and superintendent. In 2004 he was recognized as New York State Superintendent of the Year by the New York State Computer and Technology Educators.