The Action Team for Partnership (ATP) worked with Second Harvest to distribute bags of food to attendees at the school’s Parent Information Nights, which are held three times a year. The web-based Parent Portal at Ochoa is one tool that helps all parents monitor their students’ grades and progress.
Pasco, WA
Harvest Partnership
The population of Ochoa Middle School is about 90% Hispanic and 97% free/reduced-price lunch. Students who are learning English face challenges that are exacerbated by poverty. To alleviate some of these issues, Ochoa partnered with Second Harvest, a local food bank that also conducts outreach services. The Action Team for Partnership (ATP) worked with Second Harvest to distribute bags of food to attendees at the school’s Parent Information Nights, which are held three times a year.
Parents are surveyed in English or Spanish at the start of the school year for their suggestions and interests in topics for Parent Information Nights. The top three survey topics are selected for the meetings. Statistics from Second Harvest show that 25% of the population of the school’s community are food insecure, and because of work schedules cannot always get to the food bank. Ochoa’s ATP decided it was in everyone’s best interest to “bundle” parents’ need for information with their need for good nutrition.
Parent Portal Access
Educators at Ochoa Middle School know that one of teachers’ most important tasks is to communicate with parents about their child’s academic progress in school. For parents who speak a language other than English, it can be challenging to know exactly how to support their children’s learning. The web-based Parent Portal at Ochoa is one tool that helps all parents monitor their students’ grades and progress. The staff wanted to know how many parents use the Portal, and if they did, whether it helped them support their child’s academic success.
To gather data on these questions, the ATP’s project Parent Portal Access asked for information from parents of students in two seventh-grade classrooms. At the fall parent-teacher conference, parents took a pre-survey in Spanish or English on their use of the portal. The three-question survey asked:
- Are you familiar with or do you know about the Parent Portal?
- Do you use the Parent Portal to monitor your student’s grades?
- If you use the Parent Portal, does it help your student be more successful in school?
Parents also received printed, magnetized directions to post on the refrigerator on how to access and use the Parent Portal. They were surveyed again at the spring teacher-parent conference. The data indicated that more parents used and found the Parent Portal helpful from fall to spring. Students, too, were more aware in the spring of their own grades because their parents used the Parent Portal.
Parent Portal Access is featured in Promising Partnership Practices 2015.
