Parents build a love for school involvement

The classrooms and corridors at Fair Oaks Elementary were empty last Tuesday evening, but the school's media center rang with laughter, chatting voices and a fussing baby or two.

Ana Markowski, PTO co-president, asked for volunteers to staff a popcorn cart.

A mom raised her hand.

"Uuuuuno!" Markowski cried.

Through a combination of good communication and thinking outside the box, Fair Oaks in Brooklyn Park has accomplished what has eluded many other schools. During a period of transition in the ethnically and economically diverse district, and at a time when parents are busy and stressed out, the parent-teacher organization packs 'em in at its monthly meetings, regularly overflowing its meeting space. Tuesday's junto, as the Spanish-speaking families call the monthly PTO meeting, drew 22 parents. Other recent meetings have drawn as many as 50.

It was the last meeting of the school year and the last before an overhaul by the Osseo School District that will bring dramatic changes.

Most of Fair Oaks' students -- 92 percent ethnic minorities -- speak Spanish or Hmong; 85 percent are eligible for free and reduced lunch.

Several studies, including one the PTA will release this week, link family involvement at school and student success, regardless of race, class, ethnicity and parents' education level. And involvement can mean anything from organizing to volunteering to family reading at home.

Five years ago, Markowski said, there was no parent involvement in the PTO.

The meetings were long, she said. And boring.

"I spoke English, and there were a lot of things I didn't understand," she said.

So Markowski and co-president Liz Melby, both paraprofessionals at the school, changed the way the group works.

Markowski and Melby work as a team. Melby handles the paperwork, and Markowski is the social glue who keeps people coming back with her geniality and personal phone invitations. Much of the nitty-gritty of the PTO has been done by an executive group of about half a dozen people, often by e-mail. But that group has drawn on the larger group for volunteers.

Most parents' priority is to stay in the loop.

"The No. 1 thing is getting parents involved," Markowski said. "Most of the parents here are very concerned about their kids' education."

A personal touch is vital, said PTA's Gary. Many successful schools have a paid parent liaison, a position Markowski seems to have assumed, although those duties aren't part of her job description as an elementary paraprofessional and translator.

So is a willingness to think outside the standard business meeting format. In some places, Gary said, parent groups have begun meeting in churches or at Boys and Girls Clubs. In others, leaders post meeting notices at the grocery store.

"There is no 'the model,'" Gary said. "We've been talking about 'the model' for 35 years, as long as I've been doing this. But what fits for one school and one community will not work in another."

Markowski markets PTO meetings to students with a video announcement starring a puppet named Maria who dances and tells the students, "Guess what, boys and girls? Today is the day for PTO!" Markowski warbles. "See you tonight, kids!" She finishes off with a trill of la-la-las that have the kids singing all day.

Many families bring everyone to the meetings; the older kids take the younger siblings to shoot hoops while parents talk in the media center.

After a short list of announcements and updates last Tuesday, Assistant Principal Ann Mock began an update on next year's changes. Every few sentences, Markowski broke in to translate into Spanish.

A baby began to fuss; Melby scooped her up and rocked her so the child's mother could listen.

As the school year winds down, neither Melby nor Markowski knows whether they'll have jobs in the cash-strapped district next year. And as Fair Oaks combines with Cedar Island and Oak View as one piece of a three-school pre-K-6 campus, half of next year's student body will come from families with no history at Fair Oaks.

Still, Markowski already has reserved the cafeteria on meeting nights next year. They need more space, she said.

"We don't fit anymore in the media center," she said.