The conversation on reopening schools and the start of the 2020-2021 school year has left parents and families with many questions about what school will look like and what’s next for their child’s learning.
As part of National PTA’s initiative, From Report to Results – which seeks to ensure parents have access to meaningful educational data and the tools to interpret and use data to celebrate achievements and advocate for improvements so that all students have the best and most supportive learning environment possible – we are excited to share the release of our Community Conversation resources for parents. The goal of the Community Conversations is to bring parents together with school and district leaders to discuss the impact of closures from COVID-19 on student and school performance, and understand how schools plan to move forward.
Despite some incomplete data from schools closing, states are still obligated to report data. Moreover, schools and districts are still responsible for serving all students well and ensuring the school is making progress in the areas needed. Student and school level data will inform state decisions about how they will measure performance, and how they will assess the impact of school closures.
Parents are critical stakeholders in how schools gather, share and use school-performance data to make decisions.
National PTA identified the critical questions parents should ask school leaders to ensure that schools continue to share transparent school-performance data. PTA’s questions also address how schools are continuing to measure student learning and progress to ensure all students are being served well.
We invite you to share these resources widely with the PTAs in your state, and we hope you will encourage your local PTAs to lead these conversations in their communities. The Community Conversation resources include tools to plan for and set up the conversation, like sample email language and one-pagers, as well as follow-up support like post-conversation surveys. These tools can be used for a variety of situations: to support larger conversations like a virtual town hall, or a smaller conversation between parents and a principal.
