Norwood Elementary Motivates, Mobilizes Parents to Help Children Succeed

For many teachers and administrators at Norwwod Street Elementary school the simplest way to explain the success students are realizing at the Los Angeles elementary school may be summed up by a simple phrase: Parents helping parents help kids.

"We make a concerted effort to involve the parents in their children's education," says Norwood Principal Rita Flynn. "Our parents center gives them every opportunity to be true partners."

As an LAEP Excellence Award winner in the School-Community category, Norwood has found a way to motivate and mobilize parents to help their children achieve. The student population is 95 percent Hispanic and although the majority of parents have little educational experience, they are finding ways to help their children with the help of the Norwood Parents Center.

Through the center, Norwood offers many social services to its families. The Healthy Start Program links families with necessary health resources and services, including free dental screenings for Norwood's students provided by Pediatric and Family Medical Center. In return, parents have been very active in volunteering their time to the school. This year, more than 200 volunteers have given almost 2,500 hours of their time. The Parent Center is the hub through which these parents coordinate their volunteering.

Flynn said the focus of the center's work is within the Hand-to-Hand program, which was established as a vehicle for parents to help their kindergarten children transition to the first grade. With a focus on literacy, Hand-to-Hand encourages parents to do creative activities at home with their children that relate to established academic standards and specific lessons from the classroom.

A grant from the California Community Foundation has made it possible for Norwood to establish a Saturday School Program, which recently had 40 parents and their children participate in a series of classes designed to improve language skills. In addition. LAP READ is a weekly program to encourage parents to read with their infants and toddlers. A strong partnership with USC provides social work interns, dental screening, tutoring and a variety of other services. The center also offers parents GED, English and computer classes.

"We help teachers with classroom materials," said Guadalupe Andrade, one of the parent volunteers who staff the center daily. "We do creative visual aids to help the students learn stories and other lessons better. We see what teachers do in their classrooms and emulate them with our kids at home."

During the past two years of the centers' existence, the year-round school has made great strides in improving student achievement. Norwood's statistics on the growth of fluency in English are strong: In the 1998-99 school year, 120 students were redesignated as fluent, up from 50 students in the 1997-98 school year, and 35 in the 1996-97 school year. In reading, all Hispanic students improved 5 percentile points, the redesignated students improved 11 percentile points, and English speakers improved 14 percentile points.

"Parents are essential to a kid's success, especially in the early grades, Flynn said. "If we don't have parents on board, it's an uphill battle."

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