Education Week - March 5, 2014 - Leaders to Learn From - S23

PARENT ENGAGEMENT
Tracy Hill
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Office of Family and Community Engagement
Cleveland Metropolitan School District
BY KARLA SCOON REID
W
orking with parents comes naturally
to Tracy Hill.
The Cleveland schools administrator
began her teaching career 24 years ago
working with the families of children
whose behavior problems made it difficult
for them to attend traditional public
schools. Both inside and outside the classroom,
she immediately learned that parents
play a pivotal role in their children's
future academic and social success.
"You can't just treat the child," Ms. Hill
said. "You have to work with the family
as well."
As parent-engagement strategies gain
momentum in districts across the nation,
the long-held belief that parents
are problems or obstacles to be overcome,
rather than partners in learning,
remains a challenge.
In the 40,000-student Cleveland
school system, however, Ms. Hill is being
praised for methodically building a systemic
approach to ensure that parents
are educated and engaged at every stage
of their children's academic journey.
Under Ms. Hill's direction as the dis-
trict's executive director of family and
community engagement, Cleveland
schools are in the midst of a cultural
shift when it comes to parents. Rather
than an afterthought, parent input is
sought early and often and at all levels
in this urban district in northeastern
Ohio-whether it's for systemwide school
improvement plans or implementation of
new statewide reading benchmarks.
"There's not a parent out there who
wakes up in the morning and says, 'I'm
going to screw up my child,' " Ms. Hill
said emphatically. "Parents who want to
be involved just need someone who will
show them the way."
Among the administrator's most suc-
cessful parent-engagement undertakings
are the Parent University College
Tours, which provides parents a muchneeded
firsthand look at postsecondary
opportunities available to their children.
For many Cleveland parents, the tours
may be their first time visiting a college
campus. (All Cleveland students come
from families with incomes low enough
to qualify them for federal free and reduced-price
school lunches.)
"We assume our parents know" how to
support students' learning, said Ms. Hill,
the 50-year-old mother of a Cleveland
Heights, Ohio, high school student and
a college sophomore at the Cleveland Institute
of Art. "What if they don't know?
Is it a crime to let them know? Whose job
is it to let them know?"
Voice for Families
For more than three years, Ms. Hill has
passionately become Cleveland parents'
advocate and self-described servant. It's
a role that she's relished throughout her
career, which began at the Positive Education
Program in Cleveland, where she
taught and counseled students whose
behavior made it difficult for them to
succeed in traditional schools. Later,
she worked as a coordinator for a center
dedicated to strengthening families and
preparing young children for school in a
nearby suburb.
With that experience in mind, Ms.
Hill sought to transform how Cleveland
schools reach out to parents. She spent
part of her first year with the district
visiting and researching other school
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EDUCATION WEEK * March 5, 2014
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