Children First 2005 Conference Summary

School Success

Top recommendations:

            ▪ There must be more school nurses.  According to comments made at the conference the national recommendation for nurse: student ration is 1: 750  students.  A school nurse that attended the conference serves around 3,300 students.  There needs to be advocacy on all levels and coming from all areas to support this issue.

            ▪ Collaboration.  Schools, families, community, educators and elected officials all want success for children in schools.  Everyone is working towards and more collaboration and teamwork would enable ideas to become more of a reality.

            ▪ Implementing family resource centers at schools.

Educators:

            ▪ Foster more parent involvement in children's education.  Make it easier and more appealing to parents to get involved through parent education, support and out reach services.  Mutual support can be built between home and school.

            ▪ Keep in touch with the community.  This can be done through networking and informing the community of needs and concerns. 

            ▪ Advocate and fight for more funding. 

            ▪ Continue to expand programs and opportunities for students.  Remain aware of innovative techniques and ideas that could be beneficial to staff and students.        

            ▪ Focus on what the students need and go from there.

            ▪ Keep learning! 

Families:

▪ Be involved in children's education.  Ask them questions about school help them with homework and keep the lines of communication with educators open.

▪ Volunteer.  Get in the school system and be supportive.

▪ Family meals!!  Attempt to have dinner together as a family.  This can be quality time to share and learn about what is going on in a child's life.

▪ Read with children.

▪ Create a safe, supportive and healthy home environment.

 Business and Employers:

▪ Offer more flexibility in scheduling to allow parent to be more involved in their child's education.  Allow more time for parents to be parents.

▪ Mentor. 

▪ Create opportunities for high school students to intern in work sites.

▪ Work with schools in developing vocational programs and work as part of a curriculum.

▪ Provide more funding for education based programs.

Elected Officials:

▪ More funding!!  Provide more funding for educators, specific schools, nurses, late buses and education related programs.

▪ Make improving the nurse: student ration a top priority.

▪ Involve more collaboration in decision making.  Work with teachers, administrators, parents and even students to gain more awareness of educational needs.

▪ Increase mindfulness of education issues by visiting schools and always asking the question "is this good for children?"

▪ Zoning regulations for pre-schools.

Community Groups:

▪ Get involved.  Put effort towards bringing the students and community together by getting involved in schools and creating opportunities for students to get involved in the community.

▪ Family Resource Centers in communities or at schools.

▪ Get more involved in planning, sponsoring and budgeting.  Advocate.

▪ Mentor and volunteer in schools.

▪ Create after school tutoring programs in the community.

Children & Youth:

▪ Get involved in school and extracurricular activities.

▪ Do community service in areas of interest.

▪ Mentor and tutor younger students.

▪ Ask for help when it is needed.

▪ Set goals and be aware of what opportunities and decisions will help those goals be met.