FORT BENNING, Ga., (Feb. 3 2016) -- Dexter Elementary School held its first Parent University night Jan. 26 to educate parents about the many resources open to their students.
"The goal was for students to partner with their Families to ensure kids are supported for academics and socialization, and how to become life-long learners," said Edwina Smith, Dexter Elementary School principal. "Some of the services we have the parents aren't really aware of, so we did this to let them know what resources were available to students."
Parents attended three sessions that focused on academic and support programs students can use, as well as effective strategies Families can practice to help their children excel.
Parents could choose the sessions they wanted to attend. Sessions included Early Literacy, TerraNova Testing and Scoring, Online Resources, Writing Expectations and Strategies, Math Support, and Social and Behavioral Support.
Approximately 30 Families attended the inaugural event and children stayed busy with Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, or STEM, activities.
Faith Middle School students from the National Junior Honor Society, the Advancement via Individual Determination program, and the STEM club, helped oversee the activities, said Yvette Andrews, Math Instruction Support and Partners in Education chairperson.
"It gave the parents a chance to focus without worrying about their children," she said.
A lot of the sessions focused on TerraNova testing - an assessment on English, math, reading, social studies and science - and how children can perform well. The TerraNova assessments are part of the Department of Defense Education Activity strategic plan, Smith said.
Smith said it was an eye-opening experience for parents when she showed them results from the last few years, and how the fifth-grade students from last year had improved greatly in all areas.
This introduced parents to how important the testing is and what they can do to help their children succeed.
"We wanted to support our parents and talk about the new math initiative," Smith said.
"A lot of the parents don't know the new methods of math problems," Andrews said. "The way they are now you have to apply problems to real-life experiences."
Students now have to show several methods on how to calculate a math problem, which has been challenging for parents, she added.
"It is not the arithmetic we are used to," Smith said.
The sessions also helped Families who come from outside the United States.
"We have a huge bilingual population," Andrews said. "So empowering parents with the language and familiarizing them with the American education system is important."
After the sessions Families were treated to a lasagna dinner.
"We got a lot of positive comments from parents who were in attendance," Andrews said.
"I had quite a few parents come up to me and say thank you," Smith said. "They said they learned a lot from the event ... feedback was very positive."
Smith added it would be beneficial to do this event annually, and hopefully extend to other schools and educate more Families.
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