ABSTRACT:

This kindergarten-1st grade teacher is convinced that engaging parents in their children’s education is the key to bridging the gap in achievement. She believes that the deficit lies in the majority culture’s inability to respect and make bridges so that all can succeed in a system that is stacked against people of color, a system that ensures that white children and their parents will stay on the top of the academic and economic piles.

This paper is a call to action as well as a manual on how to effectively start and maintain parent groups. It includes a bibliography for parents and children. Because relationships and trust take time to establish, persistence in starting and continuing parent groups must be grounded in an underlying belief in one’s absolute moral obligation to empower parents of color to be advocates for their children’s educational success.

As this elementary school enters its sixth year of parent groups, the author feels that the school has only just begun to reach potential participants and have merely scratched the surface of what this can yield. She calls on readers to begin or continue parent empowerment groups in their own settings.

Data Collection Methods:

• ACTIVITY LOG
• DISCUSSION
• EVALUATION/FEEDBACK
• STUDENT WORK

Study Descriptors:

• PARENT COMPONENT
• RACE/EQUITY
• RELATIONSHIPS
• SOCIAL JUSTICE