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ABSTRACT
This qualitative investigation reports on the use of Parent Resource Centers (PRCs) as a mechanism for parental involvement in public school choice decisions. Interviews with parents and staff at seven PRCs in Florida revealed that PRCs employ multiple strategies to communicate choice information to parents: community-, school- and media-based outreach; outreach to hard-to-reach parents; and collaboration with other agencies. Personalized assistance and provision of choice materials are also highlighted as useful strategies. Results indicate that there is low level of awareness about school choice options among parents and thus clear and consistent communication of choice information is needed. While PRCs hold promise for increasing parental engagement in school choice, structural and systemic barriers to exercising choice decisions such as transportation and collaboration between schools and PRCs should be addressed. Methodologically, this study illustrates the power of triangulating data from parents and PRCs to illuminate our understanding of how parents make choice decisions.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all the parents and PRC staff who shared with us their experiences. We extend our thanks to Dr. Kathryn Borman (retired) and Dr. Judith Stein (Nova Southeastern University) for their invaluable support of the evaluation project upon which this study is based. We thank the Florida Department of Education staff especially Ms. Yolanda Miranda-Hill who accompanied the evaluation team during most of the site visits. Finally, we thank Drs. Chrystal Smith and Gladis Kersaint (University of Connecticut) for their insightful review and comments during the preparation of early drafts of this work.