A Cord of Three Strands: A New Approach to Parent Engagement in Schools

Abstract

A Cord of Three Strands: A New Approach to Parent Engagement in SchoolsA Cord of Three Strands by Soo Hong (2011) describes the efforts of one community-based organization in downtown Chicago, Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA) , to replace the "distance, tension, and antagonisms between schools and families" (p. 13) with relationships based upon collaboration. The title of this book, attributed to a parent participant, references a biblical passage to highlight that together schools, families, and communities are much stronger than when separate. This book serves as a testament to the benefits possible when schools and communities build connections that support the learning of all students, especially culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students whose parents historically have been excluded from schools (Valdes, 1996). Given that nationwide student populations are becoming increasingly diverse, this book offers a useful model for school leaders, educators (including preservice teachers), researchers, and community organizers who hope to address the common disconnect between schools and CLD families by establishing a new form of parent and community engagement in schools.Using ethnographic data, Hong describes the work of LSNA and its success in dismantling barriers between the community and its schools to promote the academic achievement of all its students. The involvement of LSNA in public schools in Chicago began in the 1990s when it extended its community revitalization efforts to include partnering with public schools. In 2011, LSNA worked with eight schools, and since 1995, it has led a highly successful parent mentor program that has trained and funded over 1,300 parents, predominately immigrant mothers, to spend 100 hours each volunteering in a teacher's classroom. The LSNA also offers afterschool classes for adults and programs for children in its school-based community learning centers.Because of its success in connecting schools and the community and the overwhelming positive effects on student achievement, LSNA has intrigued researchers and community organizers for several years and is the topic of other books, including A Match on Dry Grass by Mark Warren and Karen Mapp, who began this project. Hong joined the ongoing "Community Organizing and School Reform Project," led by Warren and Mapp, to study its efforts. Through monthly visits from 2006 to 2010, Hong arrived at an understanding, albeit somewhat limited, of the experience of teachers, parents, and neighborhood members.In order to show the complexity of the programs and the impacts on their participants, Hong described her research methodology as layered ethnography-combining "traditional ethnography" to describe the organization of LSNA and the parent mentor program across schools with "portraiture" (citing the work of Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot and Jessica Hoffman Davis) to document her personal interactions with two parent mentors, Graciela and Isabel. Hong's data collection methods included participant observations and interviews with teachers, parents, principals, elected officials, residents, and organizers.One of the most positive and intriguing impacts of Hong's description of LSNA's work is the empowerment of parents through the "Parent Mentor Program" in which parents volunteered in a classroom for two hours each morning for a year. These parent mentors assisted teachers in classroom activities and tutored children individually Monday through Thursday mornings. On Friday mornings, the parent mentors met as a cohort for training conducted by LSNA. Training sessions included not only instruction in pedagogical strategies for the classroom, but also time for the parents to set personal goals to explore and expand their roles as leaders in the school and greater community. As Hong explained, "these training sessions introduced parents to broader community issues, and by focusing on leadership development and the explicit recognition of power and inequality, LSNA encouraged parents to view themselves as active agents for personal and community transformation" (2011, p. …