Parent Involvement,as defined in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, means

"...the participation of parents in regular, two way, and meaningful communication involving student academic learning and other school activites..."

White Paper|October 2003

Taken together, these results suggest that activities requiring parents to come to the school...are more difficult to maintain than other kinds of activities, and that schools need to engage in more proactive outreach...to foster parent participation and constructive parent-teacher interactions as children grow older...This research supports the notion that schools can improve children's performance by increasing parents' ability to support learning at home...These findings suggest that it will be worthwhile for schools to put effort into fostering more constructive interactions between parents and teachers, instead of focusing solely on increasing the number of parent contacts.

Parent Involvement Increases Student Achievement

While research studies conducted over the past thirty years have consistently demonstrated that parent involvement  increases student achievement, the research also shows that parent involvement is not a single act, but rather a variety of acts - some of which have  greater impact on student achievement than others.  Very recent studies have begun to isolate the primary importance of parent involvement in setting expectations and monitoring student performance through home-based activities.  Researchers Charles v. Izzo, Roger P. Weissberg, Wesley J. Kasprow, and Michael Fendrich, in a long-term study of urban New England children published in 1999 ("A Longitudinal Assessment of Teacher Perceptions of Parent Involvement in Children's Education and School Performance," American Journal of Community Psychology, 27 (6), 817-839) conclude that:  their student's success, but allows the parent ot tailor the communication to their own schedules and technical capability - a parent can go online or can call in after work, late at night, or on the wekeend.  The act of parent involvment is not limited to the school day or the school building.  The school shall provide such other reasonable support for parental involvement actibities as parents may request.  [Title I, Sec. 1118 (e) (14)]

The communication capabilities provided by the Pinnacle Gradebook are tools that parents want.  The Gradebook provides access to information when a parent wants it, in a format parents can understand, without the necessity of coming to school or fitting into a teacher's schedule.  Training will be needed to show parents how to use this system and, more importantly, what to do with the information they obtain.  By making this system available, however, it is certain that parental involvement will increase and will become more meaningful as it is focused on increasing student achievement.