What is Parent Engagement?

Research shows a strong positive link between parent engagement and student achievement and well-being. There are many different types of parent engagement. Parents contribute to their children’s learning at home, school and at the school board level:

• At home, parents create the conditions to support student learning (for example, reading to their children, talking about school and helping with homework)
• At school, parents participate in parent-teacher dialogues, volunteer in the school and on school trips, and participate on Catholic School Advisory Councils (CSAC)
• At the board level, parents provide advice on parent engagement and communicating with parents as members of the Parent Involvement Committee (PIC)

Parent Involvement Committee (PIC)

The Parent Involvement Committee (PIC) is similar to Catholic School Advisory Councils (CSAC), but at the school board level. Where school councils focus on the local school and community, PIC focusses on things that affect more than one school by supporting parent involvement at the regional level and linking parents with the school board’s Director of Education and Trustees.

The goals of PIC are:

• To seek the advice and ideas of school councils, parents and partners
• To advise the school board on topics that matter to parents and families
• To plan and implement strategies to involve more parents at the regional level

PIC also plays a consultation role which may include the following:

• Assessing how well the board supports parent engagement
• Looking at the information the board makes available to parents, ensuring it is easy to understand
• Assessing how the school board responds to parent questions and concerns 
• Policy development
• Answering the question, ‘does the board encourage schools to reach out to parents?’

In order to broaden the number of school events that promote parent engagement and include all members of the parent community, PIC annually applies for a grant called the PRO Grant. PRO Grants provide funding to school boards to promote parent engagement at the local, regional and provincial levels, with a particular focus on parents who face barriers to parent engagement.

In the past, PIC has hosted events that include the following: professor of psychiatry and behavioural neurosciences and child advocate Dr. Jean Clinton; Dr. Alec Couros, expert in social media, technology integration, digital citizenship, and media literacy; Alyson Schafer, family counselor and parenting expert; and Dr. Greg Wells, scientist, physiologist and bestselling author; to name a few!

Alyson Schafer Dr. Alec Couros Dr. Jean Clinton

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Dr. Michael Ungar Dr. Greg Wells