Barbara Roy, second grade teacher, Sandburg Elementary School

Kudos to Barb Roy, Lake Washington School District’s “Staff Star” for September 2009.

A consistent challenge faced by schools in Lake Washington School District is to find a way to bring parents who work full-time into the classroom to help them understand the curriculum. Research supports the idea that students with parents who are actively involved and engaged in their child’s education tend to do better in school.

Barb Roy, a second grade teacher at Carl Sandburg Elementary in Kirkland, worked throughout the 2008-2009 school year to find a way to meet this challenge. She invited all parents and students at both Sandburg and Discovery Community School (a choice school housed at Sandburg) to attend monthly Family Math Nights.

These Math Nights were held the second Wednesday of each month, giving parents a consistent date to plan ahead to attend. At the beginning of each Math Night, teachers offered educational information, discussing math standards and the power of incorporating games into their child’s education. If parents play games with their children, the math skills that they learn in those games will help them to succeed at school. The rest of the evening was spent playing mathematical games like “Head Full of Numbers,” “Sequence Dice,” “CountDown,” “King Toad,” “Snap It Up,” “Over and Out,” “Math Noodler” and more.

These Math Nights were so successful in Kindergarten through grade three that Gretchen Arnold, a fifth grade teacher at Sandburg, helped expand the program to the older grade levels this past spring. This program was a collaborative effort at Sandburg/DCS as each month different teachers volunteered to help facilitate the program along with students from the Juanita High School Honor Society.

The Sandburg/Discovery PTSA funds these events using parent education money. They have also funded classroom kits of math games for each grade level that are available for teacher checkout in the library.

“Ms. Roy puts a lot of hours into these events, which is what makes them so successful,” said Sandburg/Discovery principal Mark Blomquist.

As the year progressed, the school noted a remarkable increase in attendance. More fathers attended these events because they were held in the evening, when more fathers would be available.

Ms. Roy and her fellow teachers plan to continue hosting these Math Nights throughout the 2009-2010 school year, with the help of the Sandburg/Discovery PTSA.