Did you miss last month’s Parent Connection session “Academic and Career Planning Resources,” presented by Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS) administrators from the offices of Student Support Services and Technical and Career Education?
Don’t worry! There is now an online resource.
Starting this school year, the school division began filming the popular monthly Parent Connection sessions and posting those videos online at vbschools.com. PowerPoint presentations and handouts are also available.
“There’s a high demand for these sessions,” said Dr. Amber Rach, the school division’s director of community engagement. “Typically, our reservations list is filled to capacity within 30 minutes of sending out the email invitation to parents in our school division.”
“Parents tell us that they find the sessions very informative; however, parents are not always able to attend every session because of busy family schedules,” she added.
Parent Connection workshops are offered monthly by the division’s Office of Community Engagement.
“We most often choose topics based on the feedback of our parents and sometimes topics are chosen to introduce parents to new or revised VBCPS-specific programs,” according to Rach.
Sessions sometimes involve student presenters.
For example, the “Are You Cyber Smart” workshop was presented by Advanced Technology Center students.
In the session, students demonstrated how easy it is to find information online about individuals and even involved audience participants. Parents walked away learning how to maximize privacy settings on phones and social media.
“The session was well received by parents,” Rach said. “The students did a fine job presenting the material and several parents remained after the session to ask the student presenters more questions.”
Other topics this year have included “College Planning,” “Assessing Your Child’s Readiness to Launch” and “Protect Your Child Online,” which was presented by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Due to privacy protection reasons, a video of this presentation is not online; however, DHS did provide the school division resources that are posted on vbschools.com.
Providing resources online is just one of several new improvements planned by the Office of Community Engagement to further assist VBCPS parents.
“Our main goal through the Parent Connection program is to offer parents information and resources about the topics that are important to them and their children,” Rach said.
For more information about Parent Connection sessions or to learn about more resources, including daily tips for parents, visit the Parent Connection page on vbschools.com or contact the Office of Community Engagement at parentconnection@vbschools.com.