I Pledge Allegiance to Our School

Kevin Walker's Project Appleseed is drumming up unprecedented amounts of support with its innovative Parental Involvement Pledge.

By Daniel Ammons for ptotoday.com

All parents want the best possible education for their children, but in today's understaffed and under-budgeted school systems, great schools are not always easy to find. So what can they do? They can get involved in their local school.

That involvement, though, can be daunting. How do I get involved at school with my busy schedule? How can I help? At many schools, visions of long meetings and bake sales keep parents away, but the Parental Involvement Pledge from the innovative, St. Louis-based Project Appleseed may just be the answer, making it a lot easier for parents to take part in the education process. The pledge doesn't limit parental involvement to the occasional meeting or raffle but offers 40 areas in which parents can volunteer to assist.

Thus far, the pledge has been uniquely effective. When parents are allowed to allot their own time - and type - of participation, cooperation soars. "In many schools, efforts have always been rather anemic, with the same parents volunteering over and over," says Kevin Walker, president and national director of Project Appleseed, "but in schools that use the pledge, we see an immediate burst of enthusiasm."

Project Appleseed is a nonprofit organization that aims to raise parent involvement in schools to a new level. Walker's innovative program has already spread in much the same way as the trees of its legendary namesake.

In 1991, Walker became involved with the strategic planning process in his children's University City, St. Louis, school district and soon found himself caught up in education reform. "I got bitten by the school reform bug. I got involved in a committee, and from the 12 parents on that committee, we grew to 400 in two years," says Walker. A former political organizer, Walker used those skills to benefit the Appleseed program.

A Plan for Parental Involvement

What is it about the organization that seems so appealing? For one thing, the Parental Involvement Pledge. Based on similar agreements such as the contract used between teens and their parents by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the pledge has elicited an avalanche of response.

The pledge is a three-part weapon against educational failings. Parents first sign a portion of the document stating that they are committed to improving education. Then they indicate the number of hours per semester that they are able to volunteer. Finally, they mark the areas in which they can help, be it speaking in class, helping with clerical duties, or tutoring. "Michael Donovan, Appleseed's co-founder, conceived the pledge in 1993," says Walker. "He decided we should do what MADD did with its parent/child contract, so he thought Project Appleseed should have a 'pledge.'"

Not everyone was convinced that the contract would be so effective. Walker himself recalls, "I wasn't sold on the idea at first. I thought it was a little corny and that maybe parents wouldn't take it seriously, but within 10 days of releasing it, we had 1,400 parents involved in a school district of 4,400." Within three months of instituting the pledge, Walker found himself sitting in the White House, being asked how this document could be used to improve education across the nation.

One characteristic of the pledge that makes it appealing to educators and parents alike is the specific measuring of the number of hours raised. "We can quantitatively track just how much involvement our pledge creates," says Walker. "It's a measurable way to determine exactly how parental involvement affects the education process." And there is quite a quantity to measure: The project currently has participation from about 3,500 schools.

But what is it that draws these parents out in droves, donating billions of dollars in man-hours? According to Roger Warner, registered nurse and parent of two young daughters, the flexibility of the volunteering is a plus. "Monthly meetings are so restrictive. And when I saw Kevin on the Today show, his ideas were so close to mine that I looked up Project Appleseed's Web site," he says.

"My goal with the pledge was to try to ensure that my daughter get the best possible education without having to find a private school," Warner recalls. "Private schools may have additional resources, but parent involvement is still essential. Project Appleseed could be the template for the way parents become active in their children's education."

Warner's expectations for the pledge in his Milwaukee, Wisconsin, school system sound simple enough, but the way to education reform has never been easy. "Schools don't always think of parents as a resource. They've often been regarded as a nuisance or an interference," says Walker. "Many educators are just now realizing how important this involvement is."

The responsibility for this historic lack of parental help can't be placed solely on the shoulders of the education system. Judy Hajek, Alabama teacher and mother, points out that many parents weren't all that crazy about school themselves. "We have many parents who didn't finish high school. School is often a very negative thing for them," she says. "We'd like to make them feel more comfortable so they realize that their kids don't have to have the same bad experience."

"We're trying really hard to build parental involvement, but it's easier to be involved as a teacher than as a parent. I spend all day with the kids, but their parents are working, and when they get home, there's not always extra time," says Hajek.

How has Hajek allotted her time with the pledge? "With the pledge, my husband Henry and I said that we would be willing to assist with field trips, help with anything that the teacher might need at home [cutting, etc.], send snacks, and activities like these. We already spend one day a semester with our son Connor at school, and we attend PTA meetings in the evenings and any parent conference that is scheduled."

Another aspect of the pledge that is garnering praise is the Parental Involvement Report Card, which reveals how parents can improve their current volunteer efforts before they agree to donate more time. "It's a diagnostic tool," says Walker. "Parents determine what areas they need improvement in and then the use the pledge to fix any problems with participation."

Bringing Parents Together

In addition to the volunteer hours raised by the pledge, the project's communication aspect keeps parents constantly informed. Through the organization's Web site, parents can discuss issues that they are concerned with and share their feelings and ideas on any number of topics related to improving schools. "My idea was a Web site that was very interactive where parents could have open discussion all the time," says Walker. "Appleseed can bring people together with all of these great progressive ideas. I think parents can work really well together in this type of forum."

And this hints at another characteristic of Walker's group. If enough parents get involved, they can take their education reform concerns past the level of working directly with their kids and into the realm of political influence. If a strong enough lobby is built, parents could easily influence the educational decisions made by legislators.

So as Walker looks out over the seeds he has planted in the field of education, what hopes does he have for the future of the organization? "Our next goal is to raise our annual numbers," he says. "If we could get parents involved in 10 hours a day, we could generate the money in man hours that it takes to operate the entire k-12 education system. We're talking about billions of dollars."

If your interest is piqued, check out the Project Appleseed Web site - and download your own copy of the Parental Involvement Pledge - at www.projectappleseed.org.

 

 



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