With the end of Nov. nearing, family engagement night is a fun way for parents to get more involved with their student’s school life at Park and see how the first part of the school year has been going. It is also another way for teachers to interact with families and students to be more involved with their community. Although the turnout of people at family engagement night is not always significant, everyone makes it work and it ends up being pretty successful.
According to Principal LaNisha Paddock, family engagement night is a place where families can explore what’s happening in our school and within faculty. Paddock said it’s a community event where you can explore and get a feel for the high school.
“We try to make it a community event where you get to see the new spaces and build relationships with our staff,” Paddock said. “Families who have students at the school can come in and explore what’s happening in our different content areas, whether it’s social studies or math and just get an idea of what their student is doing in the classroom.”
Anne Lawler, a freshman at Park, likes these events because her parents can see what a typical school day looks like for her. She thinks it’s important because it strengthens the community at Park.
“I do like these types of events because they give my parents a chance to see what my teachers think about me and to see how I’m doing in school. Without these types of events, they would not get the opportunity to do that. I think there should be more events like these because it really does help lots of families and the Park community overall,” Lawler said.
Cecile Collinet, a Park parent, said she was at a previous family night in Oct. and thought it was well done. She said she loved seeing different teachers and what was happening inside the school because she might not get a chance otherwise.
“I attended tonight because I thought I would come and see what’s new. I attended the family night that was in October, and it was set up very nicely. It’s great that people can meet teachers and see the school,” Collinet said.
According to Lawler, something she would change about family night is the advertising because she thinks there aren’t enough people attending the events even though they are beneficial to the community..
“I only heard about this event through one teacher, and I think that’s really sad because events like these should be talked about more. I think family engagement nights are a key aspect in high school. It should be talked about more, and there could be things like posters and or emails that could get sent out,” Lawler said.
Paddock said she got feedback from families to create another family night experience more accommodating towards certain people. To plan this event, they made it more of a meet-and-greet, a different approach to a conference.
“We had a family engagement night even last year, but it was during the daytime, and so some of the feedback we had gotten from families is that they enjoyed the event, but it didn’t have access for all families because it was in the day when a lot of people were working,” Paddock said. “Family engagement night is just a more informal way of gathering and learning what’s happening in our school.”
