Parent Compact

Parent Compact

This Compact outlines how the staff, students and parents/guardians will all share the responsibility for improved student academic achievement.

School Responsibilities

First Philadelphia Charter School will:

• Provide high-quality curriculum and instruction in an effective learning environment that supports students in meeting the Commonwealth’s high academic achievement standards.
• Establish high expectations for staff, students, and parents/parenting adults by ensuring a rigorous and challenging curriculum, implementing programs targeted at increasing student achievement, and committing to recruit, retain, and train qualified staff.
• Highlight ways that parents/parenting adults can extend and advance the learning environment at home.
• Implement programs, activities, and procedures that will be planned and operated at various times throughout the school year to engage parents/parenting adults as active participants in increasing student achievement, such as literacy activities with parents/parenting adults,
• Family Learning Nights, seminars with the school psychologist, and other activities and workshops.
• Ensure regular progress updates to parents/parenting adults by holding regular Report Card Conferences, which serve as opportunities for families to participate in discussions relating to the education of their child.
• Offer flexible scheduling times for meetings with parents/parenting adults, and parent/parenting adult workshops.
• Use, when appropriate and necessary, First Philadelphia’s Title I funds to pay reasonable fees for childcare to enable parents/parenting adults to participate in school related Title I meetings and training sessions.
• Offer flexible tutoring and intervention programs.
• Administer family satisfaction questionnaires every Spring.

Administer family needs/interests surveys every Fall

• Otherwise support a partnership between the school, parents/parenting adults, and the community to improve student academic achievement; including helping parents/parenting adults understand the following topics: Pennsylvania’s academic content standards, State academic assessments, the School Report Card, and how to monitor their child’s progress.
• Provide materials and training to help parents/parenting adults improve their children’s academic achievement including extended learning opportunities through parent/parenting adult involvement take-home activities and books, in addition to articles in a monthly newsletter, Information can be found on the school website.
• Ensure that information related to all school and family programs, meetings, and other activities will be sent home in a format and language that parents/parenting adults can understand, and honor requests for alternate formats, to the extent appropriate, in a language that parents/parenting adults can understand.
• Maximize parent/parenting adult involvement and participation in their child’s education by offering Title I meetings at different times, distributing surveys and questionnaires asking parents/parenting adults for suggestions and recommendations for continued school program effectiveness and/or improvement, and responding to all suggestions and recommendations as soon as practicably possible.
• Provide parents/parenting adults with regular reports on their children’s academic and behavioral progress through progress reporting during Parent/Teacher conferences, samples of student work, and updates on reading, writing and math assessments. First Philadelphia will initiate parent/parenting adult contact whenever a pattern of behavior emerges that interferes with student learning.
• Provide parents/parenting adults with opportunities to become engaged with their children’s educational program and progress through volunteering and participating in their children’s classes and observing classroom activities.
• Provide parents/parenting adults reasonable access to staff

Parent Responsiblities

Parental involvement means the participation of parents/parenting adults in regular, two- way, and meaningful communication about student academic learning and other school activities. This is to ensure that:

• Parents/Parenting adults play an integral role in assisting in their child’s learning;
• Parents/parenting adults are encouraged to be actively involved in their child’s education at school.

In addition, parents/parenting adults agree to support their child’s learning in the following ways:

1. Establish routines to support my child’s success in school:
   • appropriate bed time
   • homework & reading
   • nutrition
   • grooming and hygiene
2. Communicate the significance of success in school and its relationship with success in life.
3. Volunteer time to the school during the school year.
4. Ensure that their child attends school on a regular basis and arrives at school on time.
5. Make sure that their child completes and returns homework on time.
6. Remain informed about their child’s education and communicate with the school by promptly reading all notices from the school and responding as appropriate.

Student Responsiblities

Students of First Philadelphia Charter School will share the responsibility to improve their academic achievement and achieve the State’s high standards. Specifically, students agree that they will:

• Attend school regularly and arrive at school on time.
• homework and return it to school on time.
• Support the mission of FPPCS as a Caring School Community.
• Follow the Code of Student Conduct.
• Be responsible for giving family members all information sent home from school. Plan a portion of each day for a period of uninterrupted reading time.