PARENT LIAISON

DEFINITION:  Assist school staff with improving family involvement to support students’ learning and school programs, by aiding families with understanding school-home relationship and setting home conditions that support children as students at each age and grade level.  Include families as participants in school decisions, governance, and advocacy through PTA, school councils, committees, and other parent organizations.  Communicate with families about school programs and student progress through effective school-to-home and home-to-school communications.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

-                      Develop welcoming environment for parents and families

-                      Assists staff with home communications.  Create a system to communicate with parents in a format and language parents understand.

-                      Assess what parents want to learn; build programs around parents’ concerns

-                      Provide information to families on effective home learning approaches for student success

-                      Jointly develop with parents a school-parent compact that outlines how parents, staff and students will share the responsibility for improved student academic achievement

-                      Provide volunteer opportunities for a variety of skills, interests, languages, abilities and schedules; develop culturally appropriate outreach to recruit parent volunteers representing school’s diversity

-                      Support any resources available to help insure families with appropriate medical insurance

-                      Assists in the monitoring of student attendance

-                      Assists in carrying out provisions of the compulsory education law, and the policies and regulations of the district pertaining to school attendance

-                      Investigates complaints of alleged truancy, and reports finding to proper authority

-                      Maintains confidentiality of  matters pertaining to school personnel and pupils

-                      Accompanies and supervises children outside the classroom as requested

-                      Utilizes appropriate safety precautions in the performance of duties to ensure the safety of students and staff

-                      Performs other related duties as assigned

-                      Performs such non-related duties, on a temporary basis, as may be required to meet immediate district needs

QUALIFICATIONS:

Knowledge of:

-                      Instructional methods and materials

-                      Child growth and development

-                      Characteristics of children of appropriate age levels

-                      Rules, regulations, laws, policies, programs and procedures governing the district and the assignment

-                      First Aid and CPR Training

-                      School policies and regulations as they relate to children

-                      Appropriate health and safety regulations and safety precautions and procedures

Ability to:

-                      Deal effectively with a wide variety of personalities and with situations requiring diplomacy, friendliness and poise

-                      Relate positively to children and adults

-                      Create instructional materials from patterns and written descriptions

-                      Analyze situations accurately and adopt effective courses of action

-                      Use sound judgment in times of emergency

-                      Model good English, spelling, language usage and grammar

-                      Maintain cooperative working relationships with those contacted in the course of work, including other District personnel and the public

-                      Understand, carry out and give oral and written instructions

-                      Communicate, written and verbal, in Spanish required

-                      Schedule work in order to meet assigned deadlines

-                      Proficiently operate appropriate office equipment

Training and Experience

-                      One or more years of responsible office experience, preferably in a school system or its equivalent

-                      Demonstrated success meeting and working with the public

-                      Education equivalent to the completion of 12^th grade or higher

Personal Qualities:

-                      Maturity and judgment

-                      Willingness to assume a wide range of responsibilities

-                      Willingness to continuously improve

-                      Willingness to learn new or special routines or skill or the operation of new equipment

-                      Excellent interpersonal skills

-                      Present a professional image appropriate for the workplace

-                      Good organizational skills

-                      Flexible

Adopted:  12/12/07-SBPSD