Classes Help Parents Help Kids With School

They come to school after a full day’s work, bringing the homemade cakes and cookies they promised to share with the others. They speak Tagalog, Spanish, English and Arabic, communicating despite their lack of a common culture or language.

Despite their differences, or perhaps because of them, these moms and dads eagerly gather weekly to learn how to be better parents, how to help with homework and how to keep their children out of gangs and trouble. They are educating themselves in an effort to help their children become educated.

In what is becoming an educational trend statewide, hundreds of parents are taking advantage of free classes designed to teach them how to approach their children’s teachers, where to call for homework assistance, even what is required to get into college.

On Orange County campuses like Los Amigos High School in Fountain Valley and Prospect Elementary School in Orange, scores of immigrant and refugee parents determined to learn the tricks of American education are flocking to the classes. In more than a dozen languages, groups of parents discuss discipline, study habits and ways to steer their children toward achievement.

“The purpose [of parent education] is to make poor parents friends with the teachers of their children,” said Vahac Mardirosian, founder and president of Parent Institute for Quality Education, a nonprofit organization devoted to providing parent classes on campuses statewide. “The idea is that poor parents don’t easily relate to schools unless they go and visit and become part of the educational process of the children.”

*

The parent education efforts are mandated under federal grants known as Title One. The funds are given to schools with students from low income areas and must be spent on educational programs for the students and their parents. Armed with these funds, administrators are contracting with professional parent educators rather than designing their own programs.

“This gives them [parents] a sense of empowerment and ownership. They are now much more confident,” said Los Amigos’ activities director and Title One facilitator Cathey Ryder. Many parents, especially those with limited English, are often too shy to approach teachers with concerns until they earn a diploma from one of the courses, she added.

Ryder said Los Amigos has offered a variety of parenting courses in the past, but this year determined that a more comprehensive class was needed. Parent surveys showed that education programs were highly desired, she said.

“We expected about 100 parents and were overwhelmed with the turnout,” Ryder said of the 230 parents who graduated from Los Amigos’ eight-week program Thursday. “Lots of schools do a one-night thing, but we felt we wanted to do something beyond that. We had the opportunity to reach out to parents, but two-thirds of our students live in a home where English isn’t spoken on a regular basis,” she said.

Ryder and more than a dozen other Orange County schools contracted with Mardirosian’s Santa Ana-based parent institute, which offers the eight-week courses in 14 languages.

“A lot of people complain about schools, but what I want to do is find how we can fix it,” Mardirosian, a 72-year-old retired minister, said. “I agree we need better schools for poor people, but we’ve not utilized the single most important resource a child has, which is his mom and pop.”

*

Mardirosian’s 10-year-old institute is currently contracted to offer parent education classes in 79 California schools, and another 70 are expected to sign up next quarter.

Santa Ana residents Angelica and Jaime Aranda just received diplomas from parent classes offered through John Marshall Elementary School in Westminster and Los Amigos High School. The Arandas have two children enrolled in elementary school and one in high school.

Angelica Aranda said she attends every parent class offered through the schools in an effort to learn to communicate with her children, keep them off the street and eventually steer them toward college.

“The classes are helpful,” she said. “Everyone is there to talk about their kids and share their problems.”

Classes are limited to 25 parents each and curriculum includes home and school collaboration, drugs and gangs, discipline, and college and careers. Parents are encouraged to ask questions and share ideas during classes, which are held in any language needed, Mardirosian said.

To entice parents even further, Ryder persuaded student groups, including the Spanish Club, Red Cross Club and Girls League, to offer free baby-sitting during the 90-minute weekly classes.

“The main point of the program is that parents have a lot more information and experience to give each other than the lecturers do,” Mardirosian said.

The program is free to the parents; it costs $80 per participant, with half paid for by the institute and the other half paid for by Title One funds. The institute is continually seeking grants from public and private organizations to help support its programs.

George Wilson, Los Amigos High School principal, said he has been thrilled with parents’ interest in the program. “These usually start out strong and dwindle, but this hasn’t dwindled,” he said.