Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family/School Partnerships by Anne T. Henderson, Vivian Johnson, Karen L. Mapp, Don Davies
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Book Reviews of Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family/School Partnerships
Book Review: Demonstrating how to move research to practice
Summary: 5 Stars
I will not be surprised when Beyond the Bake Sale becomes referenced as the quintessential book on parent participation. The book not only takes a widely researched topic and presents it in an organized, easy to read format, it also reads like a how-to book rather than a textbook, making the topic much more approachable.
Beyond the Bake Sale became a resource to me and participants in a recent study I did with parents of children who have disabilities, educators, and school leaders. During the study participants worked to discover parent participation techniques that would open doors to both parents of children with disabilities and educators within their schools. At the end of the study, I was able to provide each participant with a copy of this book along with a list of suggested pages that fit the needs of each individual school site. The participants were overjoyed to receive the book and many (both parents and educators) have already e-mailed me saying they appreciate the way the book presents the information. Based on the feedback of others and my own reading, Beyond the Bake Sale is not only informative, it is inspirational.
Book Review: Fantastic resource
Summary: 5 Stars
No more excuses for not engaging parents in their children's education! This book provides essential information for every educational leader, teacher, or parent who wants to break down the barriers to parent involvement. Every page is a gem, filled with valuable insights and clear strategies. Book Review: It couldn't be any better
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the book I have been waiting for! If I could give it 6 stars, I would. Six years ago I attended a workshop on parent involvement with Don Davies and Karen Mapp as presenters and it changed my life. Since then I have been working in my children's schools and in the community to establish home/school /community partnerships. Over the years I have collected three files drawers full of materials, one full shelf of books and another full shelf of binders filled with things I downloaded from the internet. I've read it all and I will tell you that this book represents the very best of it in one concise, easy-to-read, and easy-to-follow volume.
It's all here: the research(presented in an approachable manner), background on the implications of No Child Left Behind on how schools must interact with parents, case studies, tools for evaluating where you are, instructions for creating action research teams( which I have used with great success), a section on the value of parents in the arena of advocating for school improvement, and a comprehensive list of resources which are accessible to anyone with a computer and a desire to improve their schools.
I never read Anne Henderson's first Bake Sale book, but I did have the opportunity to see her speak. Her depth of knowledge in this area is incredible and her ability to make the information accessible to her audience is exceptional. All of that comes through in this book. If you want better parent involvement in your schools, start by reading this book.
Book Review: Should be required reading...
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the book I've been looking for since my daughter entered the public school system a year and a half ago! As an active and involved parent, I was eager to get involved at her school. I volunteered regularly in her classroom, I attended all her events (those in the classroom and those that were school-wide.) I joined PTO and attended meetings regularly. I served on planning committees and contributed to fund-raisers. Still, I lacked a way in to what seemed like a very tight system of parents and teachers working together. I felt as though I didn't have enough experience to know what was approriate to talk about where and when. I didn't have the confidence (even after being a teacher myself for five years) to ask the questions I wanted to ask about the way our school worked.
The transition to first grade was not a smooth one for our family. My daughter's teacher was a first-year teacher and lacked the experience she needed to keep the lines of parent-teacher communication wide open. Our concerns snowballed quickly and we were ready to pull our daughter out of the school system and look for alternatives when I found this book.
This book presents advice, tips, and plans for teachers, parents, and administrators to begin working towards collaboration and cooperation in the school setting. Our children can only benefit from having more people on their teams! I want to be recognized as an important member of my daughter's team. This book has given me tips on ways to get my daughter's school to see me that way (beyond the basics I was already doing.) I found the list of questions to ask at conferences or in meetings to be particularly helpful as ways in to a conversation with my daughter's teacher even when nothing is going wrong.
My experience has been that teachers and administrators all say the same thing. They know that family involvement is integral to student success and they urge parents to get involved. However, when it comes down to the actual work of providing those opportunities many teachers fall short.
I am meeting with our principal next week and I plan to bring this book as a donation to the school. I hope the administrators will pass the title along to the other teachers and staff at our school. I will bring another copy to the next PTO meeting, and hopefully we will start to work towards change from there. I want to give this book to every parent I know! One parent, teacher, principal--one school at a time--that is how we will transform.