Importance of Family Involvement and Events

By Trevor Abel, Dean of Students

At Minnesota Excellence in Learning Academy, it is our mission to support each child in becoming an engaged and curious learner, a confident self-advocate, and a creative problem-solver by setting high expectations and nurturing a positive culture that honors diversity, collaboration, and optimism. Our staff works extremely hard every day to fulfill this mission for our scholars, however, there is also a key partnership which we rely on--our families.  

Without family support, our scholars would be missing a key component to their education. It is crucial that we have a strong partnership and collaborate together. There’s a saying that "It takes a village to raise a child." We truly believe that to be the case. We want to form a strong partnership and team with our families in order to provide the best education possible for all of OUR scholars. Part of that partnership includes community building, which we try to do through our family events. 

With the COVID-19 pandemic still on our minds and greatly affecting how we operate, we have switched many of our family events from in-person events to virtual events. Last school year we hosted several family bingo nights, and this past week we held a virtual Jeopardy night where families came and learned trivia facts about the different teachers and staff members at our charter school. We know that this is not ideal, and in the future we hope to get back to holding in-person events. In the time being, we appreciate the support and involvement our families have given us during the pandemic.

Family engagement is important, and we, the MELA staff, understand that everyone has different work schedules, different ideas about family involvement, and different amounts of time which they are able to spend working with us. We want to listen to the ideas our families may have. We want to support and value whatever ways they are willing to work with us, and hear what we can do to improve the whole family’s educational experience at our school. We know through these partnerships that we can continue to give all our scholars at MELA the best educational experience possible.

References
Davis, C., & Yang, A. (2005). Parents & Teachers Working together. Northeast Foundation for Children.