Parent Involvement

Research clearly demonstrates a strong relationship between parental involvement in the educational process and student academic achievement. Project SOAR II is committed to encouraging parent participation, and as a major step towards achieving that objective, each school is assigned a Parent Liaison whose tasks are several:

• Help to build and sustain a culture of parental involvement and advocacy at each site.
• Provide information about Project SOAR II activities and events to students, parents, and staff.
• Promote an early awareness of college as an attainable goal.

Parent Liaisons

Our Parent Liaisons, a team of Oakland parents, are selected for their positions based upon their closeness to the school community. Indeed, these parents (or grandparents) have children currently enrolled in the Oakland Unified School District. Parent Liaisons are trained to be knowledgeable about resources that are available to parents both at the site and district level. Some parent liaisons are bilingual and are able to assist the non-English speaking population in Spanish, Cantonese and Vietnamese.

Parent Clinics are held during the school year and are designed to help parents keep track of the progress their children are making towards graduation.
With the assistance of Parent Liaisons, parents are better able to understand graduation requirements, grading systems, college entry prerequisites and resources available to help reach the academic goals they have set with their children.

Transcript Review

Project SOAR II supports proactive efforts to inform parents and students about graduation requirements and academic performance at each grade level. Transcript reviews are held once a year or as needed to help parents understand their children's progress. This is also an opportunity to publicize resources for student assistance. Parents receive information to help them determine if their student has the proper number of credits and grade point average, and whether the student is on track to graduate with the class of 2011. Parents also learn what they can do if their child is not on track to graduate