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Questions Parents Should Ask About Public Education
Questions for Whomever Runs Your Afterschool Program:
- Who will my child be supervised by?
- What kind of activities are involved in this type of after-school care?
- Is there transportation to or from the program?
- Is there coordination between the day school and after-school programs? Will the lessons of the classroom be applied after school?
Questions for Principals:
- Is my child's teacher highly qualified? Can I review a list of this teacher's credentials?
How will my child's school meet its responsibility to provide high-quality curriculum and instruction?
- How does my child's school provide a supportive, effective learning environment?
- What opportunities do you provide for communication with my child's school, such as annual parent/teacher conferences, frequent progress reports, reasonable access to staff and opportunities to volunteer and participate in the classroom and observe classroom activities?
Does my child's school have a formal family involvement policy?
Questions for Local School Board:
- What are you doing to ensure that afterschool care is available for all children?
- How will parents be involved in the development of or the strengthening of afterschool programs?
- Do you have an alternate plan for funding of afterschool care if federal dollars dry up, or will my child's afterschool care disappear?
- Is there a group that develops policies for afterschool programs? How can I join or get involved with them?
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How does the school district work with community afterschool programs that it does not directly run?
- What is the school district doing to get and keep good teachers in the classroom?
How will parents be involved in a plan to improve public education in my community?
Does the school district have a formal family involvement policy?
Questions for State Elected Officials:
- How are you working to keep afterschool care available for all the children in the state?
- How are you making afterschool care a priority in state funding?
- What will you do if federal funding for afterschool programs is decreased?
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Does the state education agency have a policy about standards for afterschool care or funding for it? How are parents involved in the policymaking process?
- May I see copies of state and local plans for public education, and find out who is on the planning team and how parents are included
Are state and local education officials including parents and representatives of parents' organizations in state and local planning?
Does the state education agency have a formal family involvement policy?
Questions for Federal Officials:
- Do you support maintaining or increasing federal funding of after-school programs?
- Are you aware that as many as 15 million children have no place to go after school?
- What are you doing to protect the funding that after-school programs receive?
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