We have been conducting home visits at L’Anse Creuse Middle School – East for over 5 years now. It is, by far, the best initiative I have been involved in as an administrator. To expand on our success of home visits, our counselor approached me last year about writing a grant to expand our current home visits to every incoming 6th grade student! We are very excited to be able to visit every single 6th grade student this year before school begins!
To give you some perspective, the majority of our home visits are conducted in the two-week period prior to the start of the school year. Up to this point, students identified as “academically at-risk” (Title I) have been the target of our home visits. In previous years, we found that we were having a difficult time engaging parents in required Title I programs. We revamped our Title I plan and replaced our parent engagement activities with home visits. We figured that if we couldn’t get parents to come to us, then we’d neutralize the territory and go to them!
What better way to now reach ALL of our parents, then to visit every single incoming 6th grade student prior to the school year beginning? When our counselor approached me with the idea, I was more than supportive. The challenge now would be finding ways to fund this initiative of incorporating all 6th grade students. We filled out an application for a district foundation grant and presented our idea to the local school board. We even invited board members and central administrators to participate in our home visits if we were given the funding! To our surprise, we were granted a foundation grant for our 6th grade home visits! Prior to applying for this grant, our “at-risk” home visits were funded through Title I funds. If you are interested in exploring home visits on your campus, there are different ways to offset the fees associated with this initiative. We provide school supplies and a backpack to every student receiving a home visit. This is not a required item; more so a generous gesture on our part.
All staff members are “invited” to participate and paid an hourly rate for their time in conducting these visits. If you are starting home visits for the first time, it could be done as a professional development activity in lieu of teachers getting paid. During my second year as principal, I wanted every teacher to experience home visits in order to see where our students come from, their homes and their community. I did the “professional development” model of home visits and we all went out in groups during our schedule PD time. I have since chosen to go back to the “volunteer” (but paid) home visit model so that those that truly want to be involved in this initiative are compensated for their time. There are ways to accomplish this task if you choose to explore this avenue in other creative ways. The deposit you make into your home visits will yield you a return like no other!
The basic premise of these back-to-school home visits is to welcome both the student and the parent back for the upcoming school year. They also help to introduce the student to one adult that they can identify with when they enter the building on the first day of school. A;ong with providing school supplies and a backpack we also deliver an invitation to attend our registration event the following week.
To date, we have only received positive feedback from our community regarding home visits. It is, essentially, the “deposit” we make that allows us to withdraw from all year long! Later in the year when I have to make negative phone calls regarding discipline I often get parents commenting, “Mrs. Davis, you know you can call me anytime. I still remember the time you came by our house to visit my son/daughter and welcome him/her back to school.” It is funny how word starts to spread that we are in the community on the days that we are conducting home visits. Many times we witness students running from their homes up to us to give hugs and ask if we are coming to their homes next. The only disappointing thing about our home visits is that I wish I could visit the homes of all 700 students in the building!
Parents and students are not the only ones that benefit from our home visits. Many of our teachers have found themselves becoming more empathetic as a result of home visits. Teachers get to see the communities that our students come from and where they return to every day when they leave our building. One teacher has recently started to rethink the idea of issuing homework (or at least reducing the amount) after what he describes as “an eye-opening home visit” where he witnessed that there was no table or area for the student to work at in the home. Some teachers are even surprised to find during these visits that some of our identified Title I students live in newly developed subdivisions in quarter to half-million dollar homes. Educating our staff on the fact that the Title I label is directly related to being academically at-risk and not always a socio-economic label has been an important lesson for all to learn.
I highly recommend all educators try home visits. Even if you start by doing a few home visits during the school year, it truly evens the playing field and removes all barriers when trying to connect with parents and the community in which your school serves. During the school year when we are unsuccessful in reaching a parent via phone, our counselors and I jump in a car and we conduct school year home visits also. These mid-year visits have become easier and less awkward because of the prior home visit that we may have already conducted with this parent.
One of the greatest challenges in middle level education today is parent involvement. If we can help to alleviate this challenge by simply going out in the community and welcoming our parents and students in a non-traditional way, why not be the change?
If you are interested in reading more about home visits, the following are great resources to begin with:
Written by Nina Davis, Principal, L'Anse Creuse Middle School - East