No Parent Left Behind

When parents help kids with their homework or get involved in an assignment, they're doing more than showing an interest in their children's education—they're helping them succeed. And since we all know that well-equipped school libraries make a huge difference in student achievement, there's a real need to make parents aware of the media center's valuable resources. How can we help parents play a more active role in their child's education? We found a way through INFOhio, a state-funded virtual library that provides K–12 students, parents, and teachers with a wide range of educational resources for all subject areas.

INFOhio serves more than 1.1 million students in 480 districts across the state, offering free access to EBSCO Host, Britannica Online, FIRSTGOV, and a range of other databases. Since its launch in 1993, students and teachers have found INFOhio incredibly useful, with media specialists reporting that their colleagues and students use it on a regular basis. Over the years, however, it was obvious that many parents didn't even know it existed. So in 2004, INFOhio launched a parent awareness campaign to get the word out about the virtues of this incredible resource.

With the help of a $40,000 grant from the Reinberger Foundation, a private organization that supports the arts and education, we created a parent project team composed of media specialists, teachers, and parents. Its first order of business was to conduct several focus groups with parents throughout the state. We found that 87 percent of kids used computers for homework both at home and school and that 70 percent of parents regularly helped children with their homework, with those numbers gradually declining in higher grades. Most parents who didn't help with homework said it was because they felt uncomfortable using computers or the Internet to find information. More importantly, however, 70 percent of parents said they'd heard of INFOhio, but only 40 percent had ever visited the Web site. Of that 40 percent, most said they used it only once for an assignment and weren't aware of the vast resources it had to offer. After seeing a demonstration of INFOhio, many parents said their children must not know about it because they would be using it if they did.

The results of the focus groups left us with three crucial facts: we needed to inform as many parents as possible about what INFOhio could do for them and their children; we needed to teach parents and students how to use the database effectively; and we needed to recruit school librarians across the state to carry out this mission.

To help media specialists spread the word, we created the “Toolkit for Promoting INFOhio Resources to Parents,” a 36-page booklet that offers various studies, including researcher Ross Todd's “Student Learning through Ohio School Libraries: The Ohio Research Study”, which shows the strong link between student achievement and solid school library programs that are staffed by certified media specialists. The kit also features articles and practical advice (such as holding open houses and parent nights) to demonstrate the ease of using INFOhio. There are also several examples of WebQuests that librarians can use to introduce students and parents to the database. Although designed for Ohio school librarians, the toolkit—which can be downloaded for free at www.infohio.org/Parent/Toolkit.html—can easily be adapted in other states to meet individual school needs. We ended up distributing the kit to more than 4,600 K–12 Ohio school libraries in 600 districts, and many parents who participated in our focus groups volunteered to hand deliver copies to their school superintendents, just to ensure that their districts knew about INFOhio.

On INFOhio's Web site, we also offered a four-minute promotional video, a fast-paced collection of interviews with students, teachers, parents, and administrators, emphasizing the benefits of INFOhio for completing school assignments, exploring personal interests, or keeping up with current events. The video is still used during parent-teacher conference nights, at school board meetings, and in classrooms. Two public service announcements (PSAs) touting INFOhio were also aired on local television and cable stations, and were used in schools during morning announcements. (To view the video and PSAs, visit www.infohio.org/Parent/OutreachKit/Video2005.html.)

As an added bonus, we created a “Parent” button on the upper right-hand corner of INFOhio's site. Double click the button and you'll find tips on how to encourage reading, keep kids safe on the Internet, and help caregivers better assist children with school assignments. The resources include links to highly recommended Web sites, such as the Cooperative Children's Book Center (www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc) and BookHive: Your Guide to Children's Literature and Books, which encourage reading, selecting the right book, and exploring reading lists. There's also a parent guide with advice on how to deal with issues ranging from peer pressure and bullying to promoting good homework habits. The button also directs parents to HomeworkNOW, a free, statewide online service that offers real-time professional tutors and librarians five days a week, from 2:00 p.m. to midnight. Parents also have access to a page of links titled “Homework Help Tools”, which shows them how to help their kids with everything from book reports and drawing a poster to creating a PowerPoint presentation.

For the start of the school year, we've created an INFOhio Toolkit for Parents, which explains how to use our core collection and offers parents a checklist that encourages regular visits with their child's teacher and school librarian.

INFOhio has also partnered with its automation vendor, SirsiDynix, to develop SchoolRooms, a new multimedia online portal, which will be launched this fall. Teams of Ohio school librarians, teachers, parents, and technicians created and tested SchoolRooms' content, which features the school library's catalog, as well as public library catalogs, online databases, various standards-driven Web sites, and e-content from publishers. How will the portal work? It will include federated searching capability that enables users to simultaneously search multiple sources and display the results in a clear, user-friendly format. For example, if a student needs information on photosynthesis, after entering the term in the search box, he will retrieve a screen that indicates the books available in his school or public library, connections to related articles in electronic databases, and recommended Web sites.

We know that INFOhio has gotten our state's parents hooked on their kids' learning because we're constantly hearing comments like “Why isn't INFOhio being used in every classroom in the state?” and “INFOhio is wonderful! Why haven't we seen this before?” Since we began spreading the word about INFOhio, more and more parents, children, and teachers are using our electronic resources. In fact, during the past year, usage has increased by more than 40 percent. Just as no child should be left behind, school librarians should leave no parent behind in their efforts to promote the value of the library media center.