Parent Involvement Liaison Responsibilities

The PIL works toward alignment of parent involvement activities and approaches across preschool–3rd grade. In this role, the Liaison coordinates the parent involvement activities (1st–3rd grade), conducts Needs Assessments of families annually, maintains the Parent Resource Room in the elementary school, and orders materials and supplies for the Parent Resource Room.

The Liaison works closely with their preschool/kindergarten counterpart, the PRT, to ensure alignment of parent involvement strategies, activities, goal-setting, and evaluation of the parent program. The school Principal is the supervisor. This position requires a minimum 10% time allocation of a full-time employee currently employed by the school district.

Typical tasks for the PIL may include:

  • Work with the PRT to plan age-specific and preschool–3rd grade parent involvement activities.
  • Identify and refer families to community resources.
  • Set goals for parent involvement levels in 1st–3rd grade.
  • Create, target, and implement systems to track involvement in the school, home, and community.
  • Set goals for content offered and ensure it meets CPC P-3 content standards.
  • Conduct annual Family Needs Assessments for elementary grade families.
  • Prepare or revise the established Parent Involvement Plan to include a menu of parent involvement options based on results of Needs Assessment and a plan to involve as many families as possible.
  • Create a monthly calendar of parent involvement activities offering a variety of events and workshops for 1st–3rd grade families, each with a focus on CPC P-3-specified content (e.g., child development, parenting, language-literacy).
  • Align CPC P-3 parent involvement efforts with other school-family engagement efforts (e.g., Title I parent involvement goals, parent councils, PTA).
    Recruit families to become involved in the CPC P-3 parent program.
    “Getting to know your parents and their needs and desires by working closely with the PRT is very helpful. Also, it’s important to take into account the community and the culture that you find in the community, and to be open to new ideas as well as to critiques or criticism.

    Getting in touch with parents successfully can be a challenge. Designing workshops for 1st–3rd grade parents to help understand the types of testing the students participate in was helpful for the students as well as the parents.”

    – Abena Story, Literacy Teacher and Parent Involvement Liaison
    Chicago Public Schools

    Requirements

    • Knowledge of the CPC P-3 program
    • A minimum of two years experience with parent involvement in the schools
    • Skills in technology and computers (MS Office, Web browsing, etc.)
    • Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education/Elementary education or related field
    • Familiarity with Title I funding and programming
    • Residence in or involvement with the school neighborhood for a minimum of 3 years
    • Experience working with the PTA or other similar school-community leadership organizations

    We Can Do This Role?

    Various school districts have different titles for similar roles. Below are examples of staff titles that may fulfill the PIL role.

    • Teacher
    • Bilingual coordinator
    • Former CPC PRT

    Interview with Olga Vasquez

    Parent Involvement Liaison, Chicago Public Schools

    Q: What strategies have you found most effective as a Parent Involvement Liaison?

    A: I love to help parents feel empowered to learn new strategies for helping their children. Our parents often feel they have nothing to contribute. We want parents to understand that they are the first teachers in their child’s life. Everything we do is geared to equip them for that role.

    Once we have a small core group of parents excited and engaged, they help us encourage other parents to join us. We have a successful read-aloud program where we lend out a new book each week to parents. We teach them how to do a picture walk and all the reading strategies we use to establish a reading time with their families.

    Parents create a family album at school and read that aloud during family time at home. This includes pictures, letters to their children, and descriptions of family activities. The children love having their parents at school and really enjoy having the family albums read to them.

    For the Day of the Dead memorial, parents had a field trip to the National Museum of Mexican Art where we learned about the symbols. Then the parents taught all the students about their cultural heritage as the classrooms came through for the special activity.

    We also studied the Chinese New Year, as a small percentage of our children are Chinese and we want to recognize different cultures. We enlisted the help of our Chinese families and took a parent field trip to the stores in Chinatown to buy a dragon, lanterns, and other materials for the activity. Once again, our parents were the leaders and facilitators as classrooms came in for the activity.