Parent and Engagement Policy
Longfellow Elementary School
2025-2026 Parent-Family Engagement Policy
If students are to be successful, parents and guardians must be actively involved in their education. Longfellow Elementary developed this policy to describe how we involve parents in the development of policies and the school-Parent Compact. We aim to assist parents in knowing how to help their children achieve in school and to ensure parents with limited English proficiency or disabilities participate in their children’s education. This policy was developed with the assistance and approval of the parents of children participating in the Title I program, as well as teachers, community members and administrators.
Annual Title 1 Parent Meeting:
At the beginning of each school year, we invite the parents of all children who participate in the Title I program to an annual meeting to discuss the requirements of a Title 1 school. Assessment scores and goals for the school year are discussed. At the meetings we discuss Title I law, its requirements, and the rights and benefits to parents of children involved. We explain how parents can be involved in the planning, review, and improvement of Title I programs, including contributing to this parental involvement policy and the school-Wide Program Plan.
Program Involvement/Additional Parent Meetings: At this meeting and at other times throughout the year, we give parents timely information about our Title I programs, including technology, reading, math, tutoring, counseling, computer labs and Saturday tutorials. We describe and explain our expectations for students and explain how we measure student performance. We explain how each individual child and our school are doing on state standardized tests, such as the STARR and other measures of performance such as DOL’s. We have a parent coordinator, who holds regular meetings and offers opportunities for parents to make suggestions and share experiences with other parents and participate in decisions concerning services offered, and how parental involvement funds are spent. If the School-Wide Program Plan is unsatisfactory to the parents, the school submits parents’ comments to the district and revises the plan as advised by the District, campus committee, and/or other designees as determined by the Director of External Funding in the Houston Independent School District.
School-Parent Compact: The School-Parent Compact was developed jointly with parents of participating Title I students and explains how parents, school staff, and the student will all share responsibility for each student’s academic success. The law requires that each compact must be developed with campus-level parental input.
Building Capacity for Involvement: It is part of Longfellow role to teach parents how to help their children learn. One way this is accomplished is by explaining education laws. Parents are given information about the National Education Goals, Title I requirements, Texas content and performance standards such as the TEKS. Additionally, the parents are given the opportunity to participate in decisions related to their child’s education and work with educators.
Parent Training and Involvement: Presentations are implemented to inform parents if their child is academically successful, how parents can work with educators to help their children and how to be involved in decision-making about the education of their children. Materials and training are provided to help parents help their children, such as Family Literacy, Family Math, Family Reading, Computer Literacy, ESL for parents. Other activities include parents learning about parenting skills, recruiting volunteers, drop-out prevention and outreach for parents and students.
Training is also given to teachers and other staff members. School staff are taught the importance of involving parents, parents as partners, programs for parents, and building ties between home and school. Other examples include encouraging parent/teacher conferences, parental concerns, and district presentations and activities.
Longfellow strives to coordinate parental involvement activities among the different programs available on our campus. Shared parental involvement activities are sponsored for Title I and Parent Involvement Center and Parent Tutor (Computer Literacy and English Literacy) Program.
The development of school-business partnerships that include activities for parents is encouraged. Community-based organizations and businesses are given information about opportunities for working with parents. They have developed programs to teach parents about banking, insurance and health information.
Accessibility: Participation, involvement and empowerment of all parents is important. Information related to student achievement, school performance, school and parent programs, meetings and other opportunities for participation is sent home in the home language whenever possible. Some of the standard information sent home in Spanish includes this policy, School-Parent Compact, announcements, newsletters, report cards and telecommunications. For parents whose home language is other than English or Spanish, the district provides methods of communication. We ensure the ability of parents with disabilities to participate by providing handicapped access to all buildings, classrooms, and buildings where meetings are held. Interpreters and other adaptations are provided whenever needed.
Parental Comments: Regular meetings are offered to parents to make suggestion, share experiences and participate in decisions relating to the education of their child. Also, parents are given the email address of the campus administrators to voice their concerns. Responses to parental comments are provided in a timely manner