Students First Page 11 Each quarter, Lester Elementary conducts parent workshops and invite parents into the school to learn the strategies that teachers use in classrooms so that parents can reinforce those same strategies at home. Lester’s second quarter workshop focused on technology and hands-on learning. Teachers conducted minilessons, modeling the skills used in the classroom, then parents were released to go to various areas and/or stations in the classroom to practice those strategies with their children. Parents who participate in such quarterly workshops express their love of the opportunity to learn to build upon what is taking place in school. In addition to participating in facilitating hands-on learning with their children, parents also learn how to access online tutorial programs that target their children’s individual needs. Students whose parents participate in Lester’s quarterly parent workshops see continual academic gains. now begun to volunteer to bring STEM to their children’s classes. It only takes a spark to get a fire going and Principal Janette Williams has high hopes that as students begin to share The workshop also allows parents and teachers to connect on a personal, yet professional, level that lends to open and honest conversations about student needs! Such relationships between school and home is key to continued student progress. As a result of building such relationships, Lester parents have begun to volunteer their talents and have scheduled times to come into classrooms and share what they do on their jobs so that students cans see firsthand the school to work connection. Such an experience is different from the typical career day that Theodore Lester students have become accustomed to. Presently, Lester does not have a separate STEM program in which students attend weekly STEM classes as part of their Related Arts curriculum but parents have about parents coming and taking an active role in classroom activities, that more parents will begin to participate. Stay tuned for our next article when Lester features a simple robot, made by students, with the help of a parent volunteer.
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