Parent Engagement

This post will be the 15th this school year.

It is very interesting to note that the only two posts that have received the most attention ....negative and positive....from purportedly parents (as very few if any cite their name next to their comments) were the previous blog on our prom and our school's position on staged fights in the community.

At any rate, I am very happy to get your attention in any of my posts. I welcome your input, insight, educated and informed opinions.

As I articulated to our Grade 12 students at their Graduation Rehearsal a few days ago, one of the many reasons why I created this blog was to engage the parental community. I felt that this avenue would allow you in the comfort of your home or at work to read what is happening at CtK through my lens.

It is my attempt to attach a sense of humanity to the position of Principal of which many people think is just a figure head. As I cited to our students, my fingerprint and/or DNA is on everything that we do in our Catholic Learning Community. I truly care about providing as many varied learning opportunities and experiences for our students. Also, I am able to do this because we have such an outstanding administrative, teaching and support staff that is sprinkled with leaders.

Our school is very dynamic and quite frankly there are very few rocks that have yet to be overturned. The one big rock left is Parent Engagement.

This has always been a tough issue in secondary schools. How do we get parents involved in our schools? For obvious reasons, parents are very involved in elementary school but the participation rate seems to decline dramatically once their children enter secondary school.

There is a fair body of research that indicates that a child's success rate in elementary school is proportionate to the engagement of their parents in school life. The body of research for secondary school is not as substantial but it is presumable that the more parents are involved in their children's secondary education the more likely they are to succeed.

We have attempted to keep you informed through Catholic School Council (where parents are always welcome), our class portals, email and phone messages, our website at http://www.ctk.ca/, our marquee and of course this blog.

There has been a push by the Ministry of Education and through the School Effectiveness Framework to have schools find ways to improve this dynamic. Our departments at CtK have all submitted SMART Goals that in some shape or form will endeavour to get you more involved or in tune with what we are doing from an academic perspective.

In addition, a sub-committee of parents from our Catholic School Council and Tanya Melykuty (Public Health Nurse), have put together a schedule of events for parents that will take place at CtK in the next school year. These events will cover issues such as technology, teen mental health, stress, anxiety, drugs, alchohol, brain development and success in secondary school. Stay tuned for information regarding when these topics will be presented.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to your comments.