Community Learning: The School - Family Partnership

What in the world is more?  It is simply the nickname we give to the enriching activities most families are already doing with their children that help pique their curiosity and imagination.  Activities such as gardening, hiking, biking, cooking, and even playing games with the family and friends engage children mentally and socially and contribute to their growth.  Self-initiated science experiments, recreational reading, trips to the museum or watching an educational video are academic examples of Community Learning.

Parents are their children's first and most influential teachers, and Monarch Learning Center recognizes that fact.  The opportunities that parents offer their children have a much greater impact on them than the 180 seven-hour days that they spend at school.  Research points to parent and family involvement as the single most important factor in student achievement.  A partnership in which teachers, students and parents share the work and responsibility for education builds a support structure around children that maximizes their opportunity to be successful.

We require parents to log more hours on the back of each monthly attendance calendar for two main reasons.  One is to give you credit for what you are already doing - spending time with your children and supporting their growth.  The other is to help make you more aware of the tremendous impact that that time has on your children and their development, and the specific ways that your family activities can support what they are learning at school.  Please take an active role in this school-family partnership and make sure that your children get more!

MORE thoughts on Family Involvement

From the Monarch Learning Center Charter:

Monarch Learning Center is pioneering a new form of school-family partnership which we call “Community Learning” and have nicknamed “more.”  During the 180 days of the academic year students spend seven hours per day on campus with MLC teachers, yet they spend the rest of the time with their families and out in the community accessing the wealth of educational and community service opportunities available there.  It is this complete partnership of home and school that grows self-reliant, life long learners.  Monarch values this school and family partnership.

From President Barack Obama's Address to Joint Session of Congress, February 24th, 2009

In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father who will attend those parent/teacher conferences, or help with homework after dinner, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, and read to their child.  I speak to you not just as a President, but as a father when I say that responsibility for our children's education must begin at home. 

Burton White of Harvard University:

The informal education that the family provides for their children makes more of an impact on a child's total education than the formal education system. If a family does its job well, the professional [teacher] can then provide effective training. If not, there may be little a professional can do.

Back to the Monarch Kids Home Page