More schools need to host parent focus groups at the end of the year. Yes, those last couple months are busy, hectic, and uncomfortable. School staff and families see the light at the end of the tunnel, people are tired, and in many schools it’s uncomfortably hot. But asking for parent feedback is one of the most effective ways to understand how the year went for the students enrolled. It is a vital piece of “customer feedback,” and schools committed to the practice report that they make important changes based on what they learn during these meetings. And parent focus groups are quick and inexpensive.
My personal experience is illustrative.
I have three children, and this year the school network that two of them attend offered parent focus groups. It offered them at a variety of times—early morning, midday, and evening—to accommodate parents’ busy schedules. As a work-from-home mom with insanely busy evenings and weekends, I signed up for a 9:00 am weekday slot.
The questions were largely about communication and family engagement. The two administrators who ran the group, the principal and a dean, wanted to know what we did and did not like about the way information was communicated during the year. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t unanimity among parents—especially since the network is “diverse by design”—but common threads did emerge. They also wanted to know our thoughts on their efforts to engage families with events during the school day, as well as activities outside of school. And they also asked us this: “If you could change one thing about the school, what would it be?”
It didn’t take long—thirty minutes maybe—but it offered a forum in which we were heard, in person, and felt valued as active participants in this thing called school that very much drives our lives from September to June. Obviously focus groups aren’t the place to air grievances specific to our own child, but they are perfect avenues for more general concerns—like the lack of parent-teacher conference slots available at one of my son’s schools.
Federal guidelines are clear about the importance—and necessity—of parent engagement, though they do not mandate face-to-face focus groups. Jeremy Chiappetta is the Executive Director at Blackstone Valley Prep (BVP), a diverse-by-design charter school in Rhode Island that has made parent focus groups a priority. All of my children have attended BVP for elementary school and my youngest will still be in one of his schools next year. When I asked him about the value of talking face to face with families, Chiappetta offered this:
“A key to school improvement is to seek feedback from all stakeholders and build action plans based on what we learn. In addition to regular family surveys, small, focused discussions with families give us important (sometimes hard to hear) feedback. These discussions often provide important insights and context that surveys sometimes miss.”
I wish I had the opportunity to sign up for a parent focus group at all of my kids’ schools. But I don’t. And neither do many other parents across the country. Although lots report the opportunity to respond to a survey at year’s end—a valuable method of feedback—face-to-face meetings that encourage feedback and conversation are rare.
Moms and dads deserve more chances to be heard about what did and didn’t work—the hits and misses—during the 180 or so days schools worked with their kids. And it’s an easy fix. Just do it.
