If there is one tenet of the No Child Left Behind Act that even the most strident critic can embrace, it is the importance of involving parents and guardians in their children's education.

The problem is, when the grownups volunteer at school they're often relegated to routine tasks like doling out snacks.

"Too often, the focus is on assisting the teacher, not the learner," said kindergarten teacher Frances Leo, a member of the East Irondequoit Teachers Association in Monroe County.

For more than 12 years, Leo has been hosting Parent Partner Days at Ivan L. Green Primary School. Here, she welcomes parents, grandparents, foster parents - anyone responsible for one of her students - to see how their children learn at school and how they can nurture the process at home.

In her search for ways to involve parents in the classroom, Leo discovered some common traits among parents in East Irondequoit, a racially and ethnically diverse working-class suburb of Rochester.

"Most parents assumed that by helping the teacher they were helping their child," Leo said. "They wanted to do something they understood, but were clearly uncomfortable thinking of themselves in a teacher's role."

Many, she said, felt vulnerable about their own school experience, their cultural background and their socioeconomic status.

"We needed to rethink both the parent volunteer role and our role as educators," Leo said.

In 1995 she launched the district's first Parent Partner Days, in which parents are guided through a series of lessons to help them discover and build on their much-needed role.

As the school year begins, parents receive a schedule of upcoming Parent Partner Days, which are held in all but a few months of the school year.

Each session focuses on a single literacy component, such as understanding phonics; topics are based on the typical student developmental level at that point in the year.

Parents get to observe their children in an actual lesson. Then, while children are off on a regularly scheduled school library visit, parents become the students as Leo guides them through interactive, hands-on activities and a PowerPoint presentation. 

Later, in a practice session, parents get to work with their children on what they have both learned. A question-answer period follows, and each family gets some individual time with Leo.

Parents leave with a list of follow-up activities, articles of interest and a textbook - specific to parents of kindergartners - from the National Institute for Literacy.

In September, the school began full-day kindergarten classes, a change Leo predicts will draw even more parents to the sessions.

Although held during the day, Parent Partner Days are better attended than after-work events because parents get to observe their children in class, Leo said.

The schedule is published at the start of the school year and is followed strictly, so parents can plan their attendance. Sign-in sheets, collected at every session, have shown a steady increase in parental turnout.

Leo said parents also have become more involved in a school-wide home reading initiative that is helping students meet the state standard for reading - 25 books or the equivalent per year across all content areas and standards.

Ninety-five percent of her classes have met the standard in each of the past 10 years. The best readers have read 800 books a year, including books read to them and books they read independently, Leo said.

"Reading by the end of kindergarten is demanded by standards, curriculum and improved educational methods," she noted, "but most importantly, it occurs because parents assume a significant and important role."

Parents, for the most part, underestimate their influence as their child's first teacher, Leo said. "We must be willing to step out of our role as teachers of children and into the role of teachers of all who can support our children's learning."

- John Strachan