CHAPTER V

WORKING WITH THE PARENTS AND THE COMMUNITY

INTRODUCTION

“It takes a community to raise a responsible child;” and that, “children are a Social

Capital to Society” according to Community Involvement in Education (CIE) – a strategy where

school involves the community to be a part of the development of the students. It encourages

parents/communities to actively participate in their children’s learning in schools by visiting

schools to monitor hygiene and teaching/learning in the classroom, discuss pupils’ performance

with teachers and provide support to their children’s quality learning. It promotes school-

community partnerships for quality pupils’ learning by encouraging dialogue between parents-

teachers, teachers-pupils, schools and community leaders.

Family and community engagement is a vital part of a truly successful school. But it

rarely just happens -- it must be intentionally designed. When it is present, we should take the

time to celebrate it and learn from it.

ORIENTATION

The school OIC principal, Ms Elmerchita Ribuca, gave an orientation as she welcomed

the student teachers. She assigned cooperating teachers to the student teachers. Then, the student

teachers followed their respective cooperating teachers and did a research to what works they are

going to do.
 The student teachers easily became comfortable with their new environment with the help of the

school personnel. They are approachable so the student teachers didn’t have any difficulties with

the communication to each other.

MEETING THE PARENTS

Schools with relationship to the parents will have a better result in education and improve

the performance of the students. The school-parent relationship will become strong if there is a

regular and clear communication between the two stakeholders. They share information

important to pupils’ success. Teachers inform families about learning objectives, school

programs, discipline codes and pupils’ performance.

In addition, the partnership will become resilient if teachers are always ready to guide

and advise the parents. If a parent has concerns about a child, or a child has special needs, the

teachers are ready to help with guidance and counselling. Teachers are also ready to talk about

ways in which parents can monitor their children’s progress and check on their homework. All

parents and guardians, even those who cannot read and write well are treated with respect.

Some of the student teachers experienced talking with the parents of the students about

their performances in their classes. They informed the teachers about the current standing, the

problems, and the complaints of the other teachers to their children.

AUXILIARY SERVICES

Earthquake Drill

Earthquake drills must thoroughly instill in the minds of the students the correct

procedures to be followed so that in an emergency there is no confusion or panic. It is best to be

prepared and ready for all eventualities, because no one can predict when earthquakes will

happen. Schools cannot be closed in advance due to earthquakes; neither can we suspend classes,

like we do when there’s a storm warning. However, with proper training and advance planning,

everyone in our school community can be prepared to react appropriately during and after the

occurrence of an earthquake.

As a preparation, Santiago City National High School conducted an earthquake drill on

February 14, 2018 to spread awareness to the students on what will they do if an earthquakes

occurs.

Junior – Senior Promenade’s Stage Preparation

Teaching is not the only work of a teacher; they also perform other non-teaching duties as

auxiliary services. Doing auxiliary services will help teachers develop their innate skills that

sometimes cannot be used in the teaching profession.

Last February 15, 2018, the student teachers lend a hand in the preparation of the stage

for the Junior – Senior Promenade program of Santiago City National High School. We inflated

balloons as part of the decoration and arranged the fabric to cover the lower part of the stage.

COMMUNITY SERVICES

As part of the practice teaching, the student teachers are required to conduct an outreach

program in a certain community. We agreed to go to Dariuk Hills at Balintocatoc, Santiago City

with the purpose of segregating wastes properly because the said place is one of the tourists’

spots in the city of Santiago therefore; there are many wastes or trashes being disposed by the

tourists.
 Before conducting our activity, we first went to the barangay captain – Hon. Julio Lucas,

to personally send the letter of our purpose in Dariuk Hills. When we are arrived at the site of our

community outreach, we found out that the trash bins are not enough. There are only one trash

bin in every station. We saw that wastes are not properly segregated. We brought four (4) big

plastic bags to serve as our bins. We sorted out the wastes in the trash bins and we picked litters

in the surroundings. We sorted out the wastes according to their decomposition which are

biodegradables (papers, dried leaves, cartons, etc.), non-biodegradables (plastic cups, candy

wrapper, Styrofoam, etc.), recyclables (plastic bottles), and hazardous (shards of glass, bottles,

etc.).

While doing our community outreach, we didn’t feel that we were working. We shared

many laughs and stories while we worked. After doing our work, we stayed there because we

were fascinated with the view we saw. Since we were on top of the hill, we saw the whole view

of Santiago City.