Education System: Analyzing Current Involvement Programs

Part 1: Analyzing Current Involvement Programs

“When schools, parents, families, and communities work together to support learning, students tend to earn higher grades, attend school more regularly, stay in school longer, and enroll in higher level programs.” (Van Roeckel, 2008, p. 1) Deer Valley High School in Glendale, AZ is the first high school built in the Deer Valley Unified Scholl District, and with a population around 1800 students, the high school is one of the bigger schools in the state. It has a tradition of family on its’ campus, where there are still teachers teaching that were there when the school opened in 1980. A number of former students have become new teachers on campus and just about all the teachers’ children have attended and graduated from the campus. With a school like ours, there are many connections to the community around it and it is demonstrated by the programs that bring in parent and community to help with the development of our students. There are numerous booster clubs run on our campus to help support student achievement on the sports fields, a school to work programs to teach the students necessary skills in different areas of either nursing, sports medicine classes, and in the culinary arts classrooms, and funding to our school to help ensure all students graduate on time. There are many programs on our campus, but I will discuss four of the programs: baseball booster club, C2G program, “school-to-work”, and the special education program sponsored by Arrowhead Hospital. These programs are designed to improve the relationships between the campus and the people in the community, and give all students on campus every opportunity to succeed in their future.

Program Name and Descri...

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...bs are broken into smaller parts and separated by the sport or activity their student participates in. Deer Valley High School is a wonderful school to work at and to teach at. Students, parents, teachers, administrators, and community leaders all work together to provide the funding and the know how to help the students become future leaders in the community. Deer Valley is a family and family always does what they can to give the next generation all the tools they need to be successful in life.

References

Holcomb-McCoy, C. (2007). School counseling to close the achievement gap: A social justice framework for success. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

National Education Association. (2008). Parent, family, community involvement in education.

Washington, D.C.: NEA Policy and Practice Department: Center for Great Public Schools.