The Voices of Students and Parents

In addition to analyzing data on which students are moving and how often, educators can learn about the circumstances, needs, and experiences of new families and students by asking them directly. Online customer satisfaction surveys are becoming more common in school districts. District and school leaders are asking parents and students to rate their performance in a variety of areas, from their communication practices to the classroom environment. A 2013 report from Hanover Research suggests that these surveys coincide with the increasing level of competition in education spurred by the growing number of charter school options, magnet schools, and open enrollment policies in many districts. “As school attendance in charter and magnet settings is not determined by geographic boundaries, such schools must make efforts to satisfy parent and student ‘customers’ to ensure robust enrollments,” the report says. These surveys also show evidence of the influence that the business world has had on the education field. Business practices that can help schools improve the way they welcome new families will be discussed in Chapter 8, but it’s clear that schools are thinking more about how they serve students and their parents. While the use of surveys is growing, it’s far less common for districts to ask for feedback specifically about their enrollment procedures or how the schools handle the issue of transition in general. As part of the Welcoming Practices initiative, the Consortium districts surveyed parents to gather input on topics such as the registration process, the responsiveness of the staff, and the interest shown in meeting students’ individual needs. More than 1,400 parent responses were received, representing 2,300 children. On a 5-point scale, the parents indicated their level of agreement with statements such as: The school made my child feel like he/she was part of the school community. The school helped my child connect with other students. The school helped me connect to other families. The school helped connect me to services and resources in the community. The parents responded that, overall, they and their children felt welcomed by the school, giving ratings above a 4.

Mobility in Student Data Systems

For schools to be more proactive about addressing the needs of transitioning students and families, it’s important that district officials have a good sense of how often students are changing schools, who these students are, where they’re coming from, and where they’re going. Currently, there is wide variation in how states handle mobility in their student data systems. While some states have a specific definition of mobility, there are also differences in those definitions. By law, states track migrant and homeless students, but not all flag other groups of students that are likely to be mobile, such as military-connected students or those in foster care. Another complication is that when students move, schools do not mark the reason for the transition. Without knowing the reason for the change, all mobile students are lumped into one category— movers. But, as the previous chapter showed, the circumstances surrounding a move can affect students in different ways and have implications for how schools respond. If a move is proactive, for example, the family and the child may feel less stress and the student might feel more positive about the experience. If the change into a new school is reactive—caused perhaps by a difficult financial situation or leaving a negative situation at another school— the student and parents might feel more anxiety about the new school and need additional support and friendship during that time. Current data systems and the information they provide make it very difficult for researchers to separate the effect of the school move from the effect of the circumstances surrounding the move. These are important distinctions for educators to consider. Data systems do allow for researchers and practitioners to understand if a student moved during the summer or during the academic year. The timing of moves may be suggestive of the type of move a student is making; proactive moves may be more likely to occur in the summer months when learning will not be disrupted. Mid-year moves may have a proactive element, such as families moving for a better job, but they may also be reactive in nature, such as a loss of housing.

Conclusion

Each school's transition story is different, and it's important for educators to understand where their students are moving from, why they're moving, and if they're about to move again. Having a sense of these characteristics can help teachers, administrators, and other school professionals decide which practices are the best fit for their individual school. While some routines and strategies can be implemented at the district level, such as opening a welcome center, creating an app, or having a standard registration process, the practices and environment at each individual school will make the most difference in whether children and families feel that they have been greeted with warmth and understanding. Established transition programs tend to focus on students who are moving between levels, such as from elementary to middle and from middle to high school. These programs do offer lessons that can be implemented more broadly for students who change schools at other times as well. But great ideas on how to welcome, connect with, and support new families are also emerging from schools every day. Gathering and sharing these locally developed ideas can help contribute to greater awareness of how changing schools impacts students and to a collection of promising practices from which educators can choose.

The Importance of Following Up

The transition period for a child into a new school lasts much longer than the initial visit and the first few days. And, even if a school made sincere attempts to welcome the child, introduce him or her to peers, and make sure the student was comfortable in the new surroundings, those gestures may “wear off” after a while. That’s why it’s important to develop a system for checking in with those students who have changed schools for reasons other than the typical moves from elementary to middle or middle to high school. A few indicators can help demonstrate whether a student has adjusted well to his or her new community or still feels disconnected or out of step with other students—grades, attendance, participation in extracurricular activities, and behavior. In this chapter, some different strategies schools are using to monitor how students are transitioning and address concerns or gaps in a student’s progress are also highlighted. As mentioned earlier, the needs of students who experienced a proactive move may be quite different from those of students who left a prior school because they or their parents were reacting to something. How is the student performing? Is homework being turned in on time? If the student’s grades are lower than they were in his or her previous school, it’s possible that he or she has missed some critical pieces of the content being taught. Review district and community-based options for getting the student some tutoring or additional instruction to fill in those learning gaps. Students who change schools in the middle of the year sometimes miss days because of a move. This can lead to a drop in performance, as noted in Chapter 1. If the child continues to miss days, the problem will likely get worse. Missing too many days of school can be an indicator that the child is struggling with the transition and hasn’t made the connections to students and adults that are necessary to develop a sense of belonging.

The Role of Staff and Community Partners

One reason that student transition between schools hasn’t received the attention that it should is because schools traditionally have not had staff members directly in charge of assuring that welcoming and transition procedures are in place. Monitoring how students are adjusting to their new classes, routines, and peer groups can fall by the wayside until a problem arises. “Nobody owns that piece,” says Robin Harwick, a Seattle University researcher who previously worked at Treehouse, a nonprofit agency that provides educational services for children in foster care. Too often, she adds, educators don’t recognize that high mobility can negatively impact a student until behavior or academic issues surface. But Micah Jacobson, of the Boomerang Project, says that picture is beginning to change and schools are increasingly placing a counselor or other staff member in charge of transition-related activities. A variety of options are available to district leaders and school administrators who want to make sure that their schools are welcoming and that consistent practices focused on ensuring smooth transitions are being implemented. The following sections discuss some approaches that districts can explore to make sure someone is consistently attending to the needs of students and families in transition (Figure 9.1). One of the best ways to ensure that teachers and other staff members begin to think about how they can create more welcoming environments is to create a team that focuses on the topic. Jacobson notes that creating a team increases the likelihood that programs will be sustained when there is staff turnover. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction has created a detailed transition planning guide that outlines steps for smooth transition from preschool through college and outlines some of the topics that can be addressed by a district-wide transition plan. These include planning professional development on the issue of transition, reviewing research-based practices, addressing issues of alignment as students move through grades, seeking input from families on their transition experiences, and recruiting volunteers to help with transition-related gatherings.

Welcoming Older Students

While some practices typically used with young children—such as summer transition programs and home visits—can be adapted to accommodate older students, there are also strategies that specifically address the questions and concerns of middle and high school students and their parents. Often faced for the first time with multiple classes, these students are trying to find their place and adjust to new expectations in several classrooms, not just one. These campuses are also typically much larger, so students need additional time to learn their way around—one tour might not be enough. Even for students who aren’t moving to a new community, the transition into a middle or high school can be a stressful and uncertain time. So having a plan for providing extra support for students who are changing schools during these years can prevent students from struggling and feeling isolated. The Search Institute, a Minneapolis-based research organization, has identified 40 developmental assets that researchers say adolescents need to develop into healthy, caring, and responsible young adults. They are organized into external and internal assets. External assets include conditions such as positive family communication, providing service to others, and having positive adult role models. Internal assets refer to qualities such as being motivated to achieve, reading for pleasure, and having the skills to resist negative peer pressure. Educators working with students who are changing schools during their middle and high school years can consider ways to foster these assets when creating welcoming and transition-related programs and practices. Student leaders who assist in these programs, such as peer mentors and buddies, can also become familiar with these assets—to strengthen their own skills and to benefit students they are trying to support. A variety of strategies exist for welcoming new students who are transitioning during a time when they might be trying to figure out what interests them, what kind of friends they want, and how to solve problems without help from their parents.

Making Virtual Connections

A student’s transition into a school starts well before he or she walks through the front doors or sits down at a desk. There are multiple strategies schools can use to smooth students’ transition and make families feel welcome before they arrive at the school. Since many of these strategies involve technology, they are presented in their own chapter. The first impression many schools leave on incoming families takes place in front of a computer, tablet screen, or mobile phone—not face-to-face. When a family is moving to a new community, one of the first things many parents— and students— will do is search online for the district or school and try to gather some basic information about the enrollment process, the neighborhood, and the achievement scores. “During my most recent move, I spent time on the school website to get a feel of how the school ran and what classes were available,” says Eraina, a student featured in Chapter 3. “This was helpful and made the transition not so shocking and confusing.” Parents might also search for information on courses or activities for their children and even read teacher profiles if those are available. Parents want to cushion the transition process for their children as much as possible; they want to be able to answer their children’s questions about the new school. School and district websites don’t, however, always make that process simple. Sometimes registration information is not easily found on a homepage, and parents might end up on pages that say “under construction” when they try to dig for more details. Some schools and districts provide email addresses for key staff members; others don’t. And, sometimes, staff members have left their position or the district, but their contact information is not updated. School Webmasters is a Mesa, Arizona-based company that develops and administers websites for schools and districts. A December 2014 blog post on the company’s site entitled “Do Parents Use Your Website?” offered this advice: In this digital age, parents looking to find a school for their child are likely to visit your website before ever visiting your campus.

What Do We Know About Student Transition?

Understanding how changing schools affects children can help educators in their efforts to create welcoming and supportive school environments. It is also important to be aware of the different types of transitions a student may experience between prekindergarten and high school. While the purpose of this book is to highlight the different ways educators can support children and families changing schools, it’s still important to look at the many reasons why they are changing. School moves are commonly classified as one of two types: structural or nonstructural. Structural changes occur when students are required to switch schools because of the distinct features of or changes within the education system. The most common example of a structural change is promotional, such as when a child finishes 5th grade and goes to a new school for 6th grade. These promotional moves are typically viewed as transitions rather than school moves. The development of new schools to address overcrowding, the rezoning of school boundaries, or the closing of low- performing schools are other examples of structural changes. While students and parents might not always feel positive about a structural move, a student tends to move with peers when these changes happen and thus is not considered a “new student.” Nonstructural mobility, on the other hand, is any school change that is not created by the features of the school system and can be the result of a multitude of life circumstances. These can include a parent’s new job, a divorce, a change in custody or foster family for a child, the result of a disciplinary action at a school, or a conflict with a teacher or another student. Students may also switch schools because they— or their parents— are seeking a specific type of academic program, such as a magnet program or a charter school. According to Dr. Russell Rumberger at the University of California Santa Barbara, 60% of students nationally make unscheduled school changes at some point between kindergarten and 12th grade. A smaller proportion of students experience many more of these changes. The scientific literature shows that both promotional and nonpromotional changes may create challenges.

Preparing for the Next Move

School transitions sometimes happen with little time for the family or the teachers to prepare. A teacher might walk into the classroom one morning to find that a student withdrew the previous afternoon and there was no opportunity to say goodbye or tell the child that he or she will be missed. These situations should not keep teachers or counselors from contacting the family and offering support through the process of transferring to a new school. If the child is relocating to another school in the district, a process can be created for teachers from the sending and receiving schools to communicate about the student if any questions arise—perhaps informally through an email or more formally by filling out a form. If the district has a transition team, as described in Chapter 9, these individuals can make suggestions and create procedures to follow when a student transfers within a district. For example, a teacher or counselor at the sending school might fill out a form that accompanies the student’s academic records and gives more descriptive informa­tion about the child’s strengths, needs, and interests. Or a checklist could be created for families to remind them what documents and other information they should gather if their child is changing schools. The Military Child Education Coalition created such a checklist for military families, which could be used as a guide. If a teacher or other school staff member is aware in advance that a child is transferring—whether it’s within the district or across the country—a variety of strategies are available for helping the family prepare for the change. A discussion with the child and family before a move is a chance for everyone involved to review the student’s academic progress and address any important issues that might need attention when the child moves into a new school. Similar to a parent–teacher conference, these meetings can help answer “what next” questions for both the parents and the child.

Lessons from Business

As noted in the Hanover Research report mentioned in Chapter 3, an increase in competition among schools has led to many administrators thinking more about students and parents as customers—and not simply as people who are required by certain geographical boundaries to attend a particular school. As a result, some educators have turned to companies that are known for outstanding customer service in order to improve the culture of their schools. Others have found inspiration in the work of Stephen Covey or other experts on leadership and effective business practices. In the Tulsa Public Schools, for example, leaders recognized inconsistencies in how people were treated when they went into a school’s front office, which can sometimes become like what one district official described as a “three- ring circus.” They’ve since taken several approaches to improving how secretaries and other office staff members in the district receive new parents and students. “When we enroll a child in our schools, we’re engaging with the whole family,” says Jane Barnes, the director of staff development and leadership training for the district. Some schools have received training from local Chick-fil-A and QuikTrip franchises in Tulsa. And now the district is providing additional professional development to school office staff members on how to be more attentive to families who walk in the door and leave a “positive, memorable impression.” Barnes says receptionists and other office employees need opportunities to practice various scenarios in which they interact with families. The training also focuses on strengthening the collegial relationships among those working in a school office and improving their skills in communicating with Hispanic families. Other districts across the country have taken lessons from “the happiest place on earth” on how to make schools more inviting and improve relationships with families. In a piece for Forbes.com, contributor Carmine Gallo wrote about how Disney employees have a way of making everyone feel that they are special. “Disney employees are trained to be ‘Assertively Friendly.’ Disney team members are encouraged to actively seek contact with guests,” he wrote.