The life of a middle school student can be fraught with hormones and quests for independence.
The changes are drastic enough that they left one mother -- one of many, no doubt -- wondering if her child had been beamed down from another planet.
Taja Howard of Harrison felt relief when she found a pamphlet in her oldest son's backpack chock-full of tips on living with a middle schooler, including a list of frequently asked questions. At the top? "Has my child turned into an alien?"
"I just laughed. I thought, 'OK, this is normal.' They're going through so many changes," says Howard, mother of five boys. "They're beginning their actual body changes, plus they're struggling with things like changing classes that wasn't really a big issue before ... They're just dealing [with a] whole lot of new things and it really does a number on them."
And around the time things start to go haywire for the kids, parents tend to become scarce on school campuses.
In 2000, the National Assessment of Education Progress reported that 90 percent of schools had half of fourth-grade parents attend parent-teacher conferences. By the eighth grade, only 57 percent of schools reported at least half of parents attending conferences.
"I will tell you that progressively as children age, parental involvement starts dropping dramatically," says Howard, who has held numerous positions on local Parent Teacher Association boards as well as the Arkansas board, where she currently serves as vice president of leadership.
Longtime school volunteer Michelle Elliott of Maumelle has seen a similar decline in parent participation.
"It's definitely a struggle and ... we try to encourage people [not to] think that way. You're not done just because they hit middle school," Elliott says. Her daughters are in middle and high school. "If you look at class parties, in elementary there are 23 kids in the class and you'll have 18 parents there, but in middle school it's like they all just disappear."
There are numerous reasons for the decline, chief among them that middle school
students don't necessarily want their parents around -- or at least, that's what they imply.
"The thing about it is, in middle school they're trying to be more independent," Daniel Whitehorn, associate superintendent for secondary education for the Little Rock School District, says. "They're trying to break away and all that stuff, but they're not as tough as they think a lot of the time. In fact, with all the changes they're going through, not just hormonally but sociologically, and all the changes that happen to them they probably need their parents more than ever."
Fatigue is also a problem. Howard has found that elementary school parents are more excited because volunteering at school is fresh and new. As their children progress, the shine wears off.
And then there's the intimidation factor.
"It may have been that they didn't graduate from high school themselves and they're intimidated," Nicholas Long, director of the Center for Effective Parenting at Arkansas Children's Hospital, says. "Maybe they were more comfortable with elementary because they could understand some of those things more clearly, what [the children are] learning."
The benefits of parent involvement in a child's education are proved. A 2002 report from Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, "A New Wave of Evidence," showed that students with involved parents typically have higher grades and test scores, enroll in higher-level programs and are more likely to be promoted and pass classes, attend school regularly, have better social skills and behavior, and pursue post-secondary education.
But parental involvement doesn't always have to include a school visit. Little Rock School District Superintendent Baker Kurrus says helping with homework and asking questions about a child's day are also critical.
"My position as superintendent is that parents are always welcome in our schools. We want them to be completely involved in their children's educations in every way and we want them to help us every chance they get," Kurrus says. "But I think parental involvement doesn't necessarily mean showing up in the classroom or even being in the school building. Being involved in your kid's education is a much more complex and deeper engagement than just how often do they show up."
Kellyann Thornton of Little Rock helped campaign for new secondary schools in west Little Rock, held offices on the PTA board at Don R. Roberts Elementary School and won awards for her contributions. She also was room parent for her son Matthew's classes in kindergarten, first, fourth and fifth grades. But when she volunteered for lunch duty at her son's middle school, things weren't the same.
"I quickly realized it was nothing like lunch duty in elementary school," she says. "When they're in middle school, they don't need any help. They don't need anything, and I just kind of stood there awkwardly."
With Matthew now in eighth grade, Thornton has shifted her efforts to assist with behind-the-scenes activities at his private school. He appreciates her efforts.
"I'm usually focused on my classes during the day, so I don't really notice her there. I don't usually see her," says Matthew, 14. "But it's cool that she's volunteering. I like knowing that my mom cares and is volunteering in our school."
Laura Mewborn, a science teacher at Maumelle Middle School in the Pulaski County Special School District, says schools can do a better job of telling parents what they need.
"I think a lot of times teachers don't know how to ask," she says.
Middle school is faster paced than elementary, with teachers seeing about 150 students over the course of seven or eight periods per day, and sometimes teachers can't stop to think about what parents can do to make their jobs easier.
"There are things that parents do to help me now and it's just amazing. They help me with things that I never thought about," says Mewborn, sponsor of the National Junior Honor Society at her school. "We have parents who show up at honor society meetings to help with small groups. When the kids divide out to do service projects, these parents are actually at these meetings, helping the kids decide on and work on their projects and that allows teachers to focus on the big picture."
She also occasionally has parents come into her classroom to help with labs.
"I'm able to give the description, I'm able to give the explanations and the parent can actually walk around and help with those," says Mewborn, who gets more instructional time with students out of that deal.
Angela Garner, principal at Goza Middle School in Arkadelphia, says many of her parents help with band and athletics booster clubs after school. She also hosts a "Bring Your Parents to School Day" once a semester.
"In the fall, they usually sit in on classes with their students, and in the spring they have the option of sitting in on classes for the next year," she says. "They can stay the whole day or just one or two classes, whatever they choose to do."
There are several things parents can do that don't require a classroom presence, like answering phones in the office, making copies, laminating and running errands.
Kevin Williams, president of the Parent Teacher Student Association at Little Rock School District's Dunbar Magnet Middle School, regularly takes his place in the hallway when classes are changing.
"When the bell rings and the kids are changing classes, a grownup's presence in the hallway can make a difference. These kids are hitting the teen mark so they're a little wild. But that doesn't mean you can't settle them down and say hey, hey, hey, slow down," he says.
Williams is also a regular in the cafeteria where he'll occasionally take his eighth-grade daughter lunch.
"I would hang around for a little bit and kind of fade out of the scene, but yet I was still there," he says.
Kids need their parents to be around whether they think they do or not, Williams says.
"We cradle our babies from kindergarten all the way to fifth grade and then I guess we have this concept where we think, 'I don't want to be [a] helicopter parent and so I'm going to scale back.' It's not about being a helicopter parent," he says. "As parents, if we don't keep the guardrails up so they can stay in their lane and do what they're supposed to do, they're going to run off into all kinds of stuff."
Family on 09/02/2015