Viers Mill Elementary Wins Praise for Involving Parents

Viers Mill Elementary School’s PTA meeting attendance is dismal. In a school whose students represent well over 30 nationalities and languages and whose families are generally low-income, many parents are too busy working, tossing together dinner or taking care of their children to attend, said Matthew Devan, principal of the Wheaton school.

But nine years after Devan developed a monthly Family Learning Night that combined free dinner (in the form of pizza), free child care (in the form of family activities with the teacher) and PTA meetings, parents’ involvement in the school and in their children’s work has risen drastically, he said.

via Gazette.net.