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Published: 2018

Total Pages: 132

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"Classrooms today are so diverse that it cannot go unnoticed. Diversity ranging from academic levels, religion, culture, etc. The focus for this thesis is how to create a collaborative environment with parents of students from different cultures. Collaboration between parents and teachers has been proven to provide student success. This is the same for all students. Collaboration is especially important for parents of children with special needs. Schools are required to ensure equity and inclusion. Equity and inclusion means “every learner matters and matters equally”. Parent and teacher collaboration helps this agenda. However, in order for parents and teachers to work together to support school success, they need to be able to understand each other and to communicate well. For many teachers, this is a challenge. One of the challenges is that the United States has become more culturally diverse. There are immigrants from different cultural backgrounds and languages. In order to ensure equity and inclusion, teachers are encouraged to strengthen their cultural understanding so that they can work with different students and be able to collaborate with parents for their children’s education. Children with special needs benefit more with parents and teachers working more closely. In Minnesota, equity and inclusion are highly promoted and supported, and there is a new grant for school districts for this purpose. District 196 is one of the school districts that received such a grant. The district has been developing a work plan which includes how to work with student from families of different cultures especially now that there are many immigrants moving south of the river to cities like Eagan, Burnsville, and Apple Valley. District 196 has already engaged community cultural workers. Trainings are also being developed. As a teacher and a parent with children including a special needs student, this writer wants to contribute to the training of teachers in working specifically with Africans. This paper includes the importance of teacher and parent collaboration, and the barriers to collaboration such as cultural differences. The writer has developed a half day curriculum. The curriculum includes creating a common vision for cross-cultural understanding by teachers, creating commitment, and developing strategies that would enable the teachers to collaborate more effectively with parents from other cultures. The focus is on working with African families. The curriculum will involve developing strategies and ways of making necessary changes."--Leaves 4-5.