NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (AP) - Chatter filled a kindergarten classroom at Lincoln Elementary School recently, as students told their parents what they’d been working on.
Justin Larsen held out a pipe cleaner for his son Caden, 5, who was wielding a pair of green safety scissors. Caden looked at it closely before cutting the pipe cleaner in half.
“Do you want this one?” Justin asked, holding up the pieces. “Or this one?”
Caden thought about it for a second before picking the second one and laying it on the paper gingerbread man he was decorating to see whether it would fit.
Down the hall in the preschool rooms, Mark Hernandez helped his grandson Joseph Beourgeois, 5, put the finishing touches on a snowman. Beourgeois picked the snowman up and danced it across the table.
“This is great,” Hernandez said.
“This” was a parent engagement breakfast - something the school does every week. Before this year, the school would have monthly parent events, but principal Matt Irish wanted to increase parent involvement.
“In my mind, I want to have the best school in the country,” Irish told parents at the Dec. 20 breakfast. “The only way to do that is for us to work side-by-side.”
The North Platte Telegraph (https://bit.ly/2is1Qbx ) reports that from start to finish, the parents are typically at the school for about 45 minutes. The breakfasts rotate through grade levels, allowing parents with students in multiple grades to have time with each child.
After the activities are completed, the group meets in the library to go over parenting tips and have discussions. Breakfast is provided to parents by a grant from the West Central District Health Department. Funds from the grant are also used to buy a board game for each family so they can spend time together during a family game night.
Irish said the students get excited when it’s their turn to have their parents in for breakfast and the parents said that they get excited too.
“I love it,” parent Rachel Torrez said. “To be a part of what my kids are doing in the classroom is amazing.”
Irish said he hopes the activities will make parents feel more comfortable about getting involved in their child’s education.
“We want to make this an open place,” Irish said. “Your child’s education should be public. You should know about it and be able to get involved with it.”
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Information from: The North Platte Telegraph, https://www.nptelegraph.com
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