Taking the time to do research and catch up on items you never got to over the summer holiday will help your school council get an early head start to the next school year.
Most of us can remember when we were in school and it was finally SUMMER!! We couldn’t wait to spend 8 – 9 weeks having fun, soaking up the sun and sleeping in. Then our parents gave us the “good news” that they wanted us to go to summer school. They talked us into the extra credit or new interest we could develop by devoting half of our summer to school.
It may not have seemed like such a good thing at the time. In fact, it likely seemed more like some kind of punishment. But I think as we grew older, we recognized the value of these additional educational opportunities.
Like our children, we parents look forward to the summer as a break from the volunteer work we contribute to the school and the school council. It is a time for us to plan vacations and spend more time with the kids in a more relaxed manner.
Use the summer to your advantage
As council members you can use the summer to do some extra learning as well. Perhaps through the year you have heard some good ideas like increasing parent engagement in technology, communication plans, creating a formal long range plan for the council or other interesting things you would like to learn more about.
Consider taking some time this summer to research these topics to bring new ideas to your school council at the start of the new school year. This will be really beneficial because once you are back to school and things get busy, it is just something that is hard to get the time to do.
Where to start
You can check your local board’s website to be sure that you have reviewed all the material available on there.
People for Education have many parent tip sheets on their website in several languages. You can find them at: https://peopleforeducation.ca/topics/parent-involvement/
Parents Engaged in Education have put together a series of school council brochures. This series focuses on specific areas to build an effective school council. These include, but are not limited to:
- Recruiting, Retaining and Succession Planning for School Councils
- School Council Communication
- Team Building Strategies
- School Council Building an Effective Three Year Plan
Using social media to increase your school council engagement
You may also find some of the articles and blogs on our website helpful. For instance, social media is becoming a “must” for councils to get their message out to their school community. Our Chief Digital Officer, Adrian Marmara has written a great series of blogs on the effective use of social media for school councils. Some of the topics include:
- 10 Ways to Increase Involvement on Your School Council Facebook Page
- Tools to help making posting on social media quick, simple and looking fantastic
- 12 back to school ideas for social media
Additional Blog resources
One of the articles that you might consider sending out with your notice of upcoming school council elections is “6 Myths about School Councils”. In addition, this blog may also be helpful in increasing school council engagement before elections in the fall, it is titled “why join your school’s parent
council”.
More resources on our website
If you haven’t already done so, we encourage you to surf our website, www.parentsengagedineducation.ca. You will find many more resources which are all free for you to read or download.
Remember to share
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Have a Happy Summer!!!
