Increasing the Parental Involvement of ELL Families

Abstract

Parental involvement has been shown to lead to an increase in students’ academic and social-emotional growth. However, teachers often struggle to increase the parental involvement rate of English Language Learner (ELL) parents. ELLs are a growing population within public schools in the United States. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how to involve the parents from this population. The overarching research question that will be investigated is: How can we increase parental involvement at the elementary level within our English Language Learner population? The research shows that ELL parents have a difficult time being involved in their child’s school due to time constraints, being unaware of what is expected of them, and feeling unwelcome within schools. However, the research also suggests that modifying teachers' perceptions of what parental involvement looks like to fit the needs of ELL parents, including offering virtual options, helps increase ELL parental involvement. A professional development (PD) will be given to ENL, general, and special education teachers to go over these barriers and to learn about a new strategy that will be implemented to increase ELL parental involvement that meets the needs of this population. Future research on how these strategies are implemented long-term and throughout a large population is recommended.