Running Head: INTERVIEW

The Interview

ESE 315 Survey of Exceptional student

Interview and home/school communication

Parent involvement and the relationship parent have with their child teacher is very important for all children. It is important for a child who have disabilities. For this assignment I contacted the local head-start here in Jonestown. I couldn’t do an interview with the head-start director Shimeka Lathan Montgomery. So, I was referred to Pre-K teacher Cayce Johnson and she was happy to do the interview.

Interview

On Wednesday August 23, 2018 at 12:00 P.M. I went to Jonestown Head-start and I interviewed Ms. Cayce Johnson. She is a Pre-K teacher and she has been working with the head start program for 6 years. She expressed that she loves he

r job and she love working with the children. The Following question were asking in the interview and this is also Ms. Johnson responses:

How do families get information at the time of enrollment? Is there a handbook for the center? What resources does the center offer to families?

Ms. Johnson stated the families who already have a child(ren) going to head start, the family service worker has the parents to update their enrollment package and they do this by coming to the head start center. On the other hand, the families who are new to the head start program, there are two ways the families receive the needed information and those ways are recruitment and come by the head start center. She stated when she say recruitment, there is a day set aside just for the staff to go from door to door encouraging parents to send their child(ren) to head start. The parents receive the information that they need to enroll their child(ren). However, for the families who are not at home, a door tag hanger from the head start agency is left letting them know that a head start recruiter have been to their house. A handbook is not provided. The head start center has an open-door policy where the families can come to the head start center and volunteer. There is a resource room and the parents can use the computer and etc.

What services are available to families in their community and do families get information about these services from the program or school?

Just to name a couple, services that are available to the families in the community are the following:

*Fathers’ engagement

*Family well-being

How does the center communicate on a day to day basis? For example, is there a family notebook that goes to school and home each day for teachers to touch base? Do they use email? Newsletters?

The center communicates on a day to day basis by sending needed information home, talking to the parents face-to-face or on the telephone, and newsletters are sent home once a month.

How does the practitioner view the effectiveness of these communication techniques?

What does he/she feel works well? What does not work well?

The communication techniques are viewed as being great ways from communication so therefore she feels that the techniques work well. However, for example, if a student is constantly coming to school sick and the parent(s) are constantly being contacted about the child being sick and the parent will not take the child to the doctor. The nurse practitioner is called to the head start center and she examines the child and if she is seeing what we have reported to her, a letter from the nurse practitioner is sent home with the child stating what was reported to her and what she sees herself. The letter also states when the child returns to school, he or she must return with a doctor’s excuse.

My Home/School communication beliefs

“Communication between parents and teaching staff is a very important of the daily life of early childhood enter and international research have shown that good stat parent communication contributes to the success of early childhood programs” (Hughes, 2001). By reading this statement Hughes help me realize how important home/school communication method really is.

As I gathered information about home/school communication from the interview and in research I was able to come up with my own belief about home/school communication. I work in a head-start as a Pre-k teacher also and all the communication ideas that Ms. Johnson gave was amazing. I think that it is good to communicate with parents by sending home reminders with the students and stay connected by emails, open door policy, and calls. I think these are simple was communication that will help things run well the whole school year.

Some things that Ms. Johnson stated about communication is their center communicate on a day to day basis by sending needed information home, talking to parents face to face, phone, and they send news letters home once a month. I agree with that because it makes it easier to know exactly what is going on. Have a daily face to face communication allows teachers to develop a good relationship with their student parents or just giving them a call to let them know what their child is learning for the month and they will still receive the monthly newsletters.

I make sure that I talk to each of my student parents so that I can build a relationship with them and they will be able to know what their child is learning and doing inside of the classroom. Communicating daily has allowed me to build a good relationship with my student parents and I am comfortable enough to share information about their child to them and they are comfortable enough with me to share information with me about their child. I like that I can communicate like this with all my student parents and I hope that I stay this way for my future students’ parents as well.

Parent involvement and the relationship parents have with their child teacher/school is important. After doing the interview with Ms. Johnson and doing some research I have learned a lot. The communication that we use for the center should continue to be used like emails, open door policy, newsletters, and face to face talks. All these communications give teachers a better opportunity of having a good relationship with their students’ parents.

Having communication help the parents build trust towards their child teachers.

In closing I see that communication help in many ways as long as the teacher/school is communication with the parent the way they supposed to, and the parents know everything that is going on with their child the school year will go smoothly and easy without having any problems. I am glad that I had the opportunity to do the interview because I really have learned a lot and I am glad that I was able to gain a little more information on becoming closer to my student’s parents.

Reference

C. Johnson (August 23, 2018) Personal Conversation (Interview)

Hughes, Patrick. (2001). Building Equitable Staff-Parent Communication in Early Childhood Settings: An Australian Case Study. Retrieved from: http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v3n2/ hughes.html on August 26, 2018