LEWISTON — On a recent snowy day, parents filed into the Longley Elementary School cafeteria for the monthly parent meeting, the third one this year.

The focus was allowing parents to observe classrooms, then hear from the principal and ask questions.

Thanks to a $2 million federal school improvement grant to boost student learning at Longley, two changes include monthly parent meetings and hiring a parent liaison who constantly interprets for Somali parents.

At the meeting, administrators welcomed about 30, mostly Somali women, parents. They explained how they’d be divided into small groups, go into classrooms and watch students in reading lessons.

Parents formed groups and followed students to class. Three mothers, including Ebla Abdi, walked outside through the snow to April Gagnon’s portable classroom. In the room a small group of English Language Learner students worked on vocabulary.

“We read the vocabulary words aloud then we spell them so they can remember the word,” Gagnon explained.

The drill began.

“The first word is ‘thousands.’ Spell thousands,” the teacher instructed.

“T-h-o-u-s-a-n-d-s, thousands,” students said together.

“Half,” Gagnon said.

“H-a-l-f, half,” students said.

“What does it mean to have half of something?” the teacher asked. One boy volunteered: “When we have a full pizza and you have a half and I have a half we cut it in two.”

“Two equal pieces. Very good,” Gagnon said.

Afterward, students wrote sentences and took turns reading aloud. After a half hour parents returned to the meeting. With interpreter and parent liaison Rilwan Osman at her side, Principal Linda St. Andre explained one school focus has been encouraging good behavior, and the majority of students were behaving very well, she said.

Students took achievement tests in the fall and in January. Soon results will be available, St. Andre reported. “We’ll decide if we need to make any adjustments or are things going the way we want.”

Several parents thanked her and said they’re happy with the school.

Speaking through an interpreter, Fosiya Ismail, who has three children at Longley, said Longley is better this year. “My daughter now is in third grade now taking fourth-grade reading,” she said through an interpreter. “Basically I’m happy with the changes, the administration, the way the kids are coming up with their education.”

Because there are two interpreters this year instead of one, there’s more opportunity for parents to talk to teachers, parents said.

Ebla Abdi has two children at Longley, ages 10 and 12. She praised the school’s communication with parents, calling it “100 percent good. We always get phone calls about the meetings, about early release days. Everything that happens here, we as parents know,” she said. “Parents are connected to the school.”

Moulid Abdi, who has four children at Longley, said he likes the idea of working with students in small groups, which makes it easier for students to understand. Coming to Longley for meetings helps, he said, adding he’d like to see more parents attend meetings. “I feel confident when I see how my kids are learning.”

Osman said parents are happy with what they saw in classrooms.

“Back home they’d see teachers standing in front of the blackboard teaching to crowds of students sitting on the floor,” he said. Watching teachers sit with students talking one-on-one, “the parents said was amazing,” he said. “They said, ‘We never thought this was the way.’ Parents really liked it.”

He’s asked parents how they like Longley this year. They approve. “They feel more connected. They know what is going on. They’re getting a lot of calls from the school about what their child is doing. They come every month to a parent meeting.”

Even if parents can’t speak English, from meetings with teachers and interpreters, “they know their kids have homework,” Osman said. At home parents will say, “’Finish your homework.’ They’ll ask them to do their homework.”

More parental involvement will boost learning, Osman predicted. When parents don’t get involved, don’t talk to teachers or know what their children are doing in school, “the child does whatever he or she wants. They feel disconnected. That’s not good.”

When students see their parents at their school talking to their teachers, students feel more pressure to work hard, he said. “The students know the parents and teachers are watching them.”

bwashuk@sunjournal.com

Parents writing school newsletter

LEWISTON – There’s a new school newsletter this year for Longley Elementary.

The first edition was published in November, a second is due out this week.

The writers are Longley parents who are also students at Lewiston Adult Education.

The idea, editor and adult education counselor Anne Kemper said, is to help adult ed students improve their writing and interviewing skills, and help get out information about the school to the community.

“It seemed like an exciting way of involving our adult parents who have children in the school system,” Kemper said. “They have to come up with different questions, interview people.” Kemper edits the student writing and sends it for approval to the school principal.

In the first edition the writer was Zmame Gana. She wrote question and answer articles with Longley Principal Linda St. Andre and parent liaison Rilwan Osman, and reported on early dismissal days and upcoming parent teacher conferences.

The second edition will feature writing by Dikra Mohamed. That newsletter will report about monthly parent meetings and parental involvement, a program that helps students develop social skills, and announcing that Lewiston School Superintendent Bill Webster will meet with Longley parents at their 2 p.m. Feb. 15 meeting.

The newsletter is handed out in the school community, and is available on the adult education’s Web page: www.lewistonadulted.org/longley.pdf

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