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ame: Vicky Rogerson Position: Springdale Parent Center Facilitator
What is your background that led you into parenting education?
I taught school 11 years, subbed for 3 years. After 10 years of teaching (grades 2,3,4, &6), I married and had two children. I did not get back into teaching for 10 more years. When I was asked to do the Parent Center I jumped at the chance As a teacher I realized that the parents are very important in education. They have the kids more than we do - even though at that time it was professed that they didn't (how educators ever came up with that I'll never know) - and they knew things about their children that I didn't have the time to discover. Get a parent on your side, and the child settles down and learns. The Parent Center lets parents know that they are very important in the education of their child. And we provide the materials they need to help their child learn.
Can you give us a brief description of your parent center and how long you have been established?
Our Parent Center started in the spring of 1992. I took over the job in the fall of 1992. We started with a rack of parent brochures in the corner of the Title I office (1/2 of a portable building on the Harvey Jones Elementary School grounds). The Title I director taught classes in the other ½ of the building for half of the day, and organized the Title I program for the district the other half of the day in the Title I office. I sat making folder games and egg carton games at a table.
Now we are in the upstairs west end of the Old Washington School building where the school district houses Migrant, Nurses,
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have used these sessions successfully.
Do you have any new idea's you've implemented that work with the parents in your parent center?
Fort Smith showed me a game they made and passed out. It is a "folder game" adjusted and changed until it fits on one piece of construction paper. I expounded upon the idea.
Parents volunteer to make 6 to 10 of these at home. I send home of bag of materials, including a glue stick, and a sample game. When they've glued everything together, they send it back to the school with their child. The Parent Center, with the help of parents, laminates all the completed games. Then the teachers send home a note saying that the kids can have this free game to keep. All we need is a parent signature so we know the parents want it at home with their child - and hopefully the parents will use the game to work with the child. Before we even start making the games, I get the approval of the grade level teachers. They decide if it is an appropriate skill and if the game is useful.
I have a video camera. I will attend any school event I'm invited to. I'll tape the event and make copies for the parents. All the parent has to do is send in a video tape; it does not have to be new. I dupe the performance off onto their tape and send it home for them to enjoy and keep. I've taped several choir performances, a field trip to Eureka Springs, and a train trip. The trip to Eureka Springs turned out to be a marvelous learning experience. The teacher took the tape and sent it home with each child. Along with the tape he sent home a packet of materials: a story the child wrote about the trip, questions about the trip, and a slip the parent had to sign saying they'd viewed the tape and telling what their
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