The Home Visit Survey was administered to the head of households of 80 high-risk families of students in the Parent Education Program component of the Reading And Writing project by trained graduate students. The study was supported by grant funds from the Target Stores Foundation and the Florida Learn and Serve Agency. The surveys were designed to collect data on two research questions. Chi Square was the major statistical model. Based on the data for research question one, 73 (91.3%) of the high-risk parents perceived that home visits would help them better support their children's education and increase their involvement in the school. Based on the data for research question two, 63 (78.8%) of the high-risk parents perceived that home visits by their children's teachers would be very effective, 35 (43.8%) of the high-risk parents perceived that home visits by counselors would be somewhat effective, and 34(42.5%) perceived that home visits by the principals would be barely effective. According to research, family involvement in the schools is the best predictor of academic success for students. Thus, the implication of this study is that teachers and counselors must be provided more time, training, and incentives to visit the homes of high-risk families.

Introduction and Purpose

When we take a serious look at the education of America's youth, it becomes immediately evident that there is much work to be done. Educational research has proved to be valuable to improve some of the ills that exist in our educational system. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to ascertain, from the perception of the highrisk families, if home visitations are effective in enhancing the school involvement of these families. If home visits are perceived to be effective, then, are home visits by some educators more effective than home visits by other educators.

Rationale and Background

School Involvement

For the purpose of this study, school involvement is defined as positive actions by key family members to support the efforts of the school by performing these positive acts in the school, in the home, or in the community (Reglin, 1993). The results of these positive acts will help the children to achieve success in the educational process. Examples of positive acts of family school involvement are:

1. Providing assistance with school assignments and projects in order to improve performance,

2. Providing the necessary time and space for study,

3. Becoming involved in a regular Home Visitation Program, and

4. Maintaining regular communication with teachers and school officials.

Demographics on the Population

The participants in the survey were parents/guardians who were the head of their households. The parents/guardians had children in the fourth and fifth grades at an urban school in Escambia County, Florida. Escambia County is a County located in Northwest Florida. The school is located in a zip code zone classified by the Department of Juvenile Justice as a high juvenile crime area. The school has 98.9% of its students enrolled in the free or reduced lunch program, and 96% of the students are African-American students. The mobility rate of the school is 63%. Thus, 63% of the students change residence in a school year, mostly because of an inability to pay the house or the apartment rent. The families are forced to move to a different home, usually with a relative or a boyfriend. More demographics are in the section of this paper on findings and conclusions.

Seven years ago, Title I funds established the Neighborhood Learning Program (NLP) at the elementary school. The NLP is an after-school program. The NLP targets more than 80 low-achieving students and provides seven teachers to work with the students in reading, math, and language on Monday afternoons and Thursday afternoons for two hours and on Saturday for five hours. Community and business volunteers are recruited and trained to assist the teachers and students. This researcher wrote a grant proposal to the Florida Learn and Serve agency for a Learn and Serve project to attach to the NLP. The Reading And Writing project was funded to support the NLP's activities in reading and writing and to help the students pass the FCAT test and the Florida Writes test. Additional funds were received from the Target Stores Foundation to fund a Parent Education Program (PEP) for the families of the RAW project's students.

Reading And Writing (RAW) Project

The RAW project has four distinct phases. For the service learning activities in the preparation phase, the RAW project staff recruit and train mentors. Mentor and tutors help mold students' oral presentation strategies, reading strategies, and writing strategies. In the action phase, with the guidance of adult tutors, students tutor other students, teach small classes, and conduct presentations. In the reflection phase, students meet with adult mentors and adult tutors to review tutoring notes, journal entries, and to write essays and to conduct short presentations on their experiences. The Parent Education Program (PEP) added parent training, home visitations, and parent surveying for he families of the RAW project students.

This study will explore the effectiveness of home visitations as perceived by the families through a parent survey administered in the home to the head of the household by six trained graduate students. The six trained graduate students were enrolled in a master's degree program in alternative education at the local university. One graduate student was a social worker for the Department of Children and Families for 10 years. Two of the students were case managers at the Department of Juvenile Justice for more than 12 years. Two of the students taught at an alternative school in Escambia County for more than eight years. The remaining student worked at a community-based nonprofit organization for 14 years. The nonprofit organization helped many of the families to find a place to stay, money to pay the rent, food to eat, and clothes for the family to wear.

Review of the Literature

Theoretical Framework

Two theories about school achievement - the helplessness hypothesis and the home influence hypothesis - form the theoretical framework for this study (Mordkowitz and Ryckman, 1986). The helplessness hypothesis states that learned helplessness is a psychological state in which repeated failure to control the outcome of the situation induces a carryover of passivity and a depressed level of performance. The home influence hypothesis suggests that children of parents with high expectations do better than children of parents with low expectations. It takes five variables of home atmosphere into account (1) family's attitude toward education; (2) reading materials in the home; (3) family stability; (4) aspirations of parents for the child; and (5) extent of the cultural activities in which the family participates (Mordkowitz, 1986). Many of the 80 students in the Neighborhood Learning program appear to be in a state of learned helplessness. The families appeared to have low expectations for the academic achievement of their students and an indifferent attitude toward the public schools.

Parents and Educators are Partners

When parents are involved in their children's education, children are more likely to succeed in school (Baker, Kessler- Sklar, Piotrkowski, and Parker, 1999). It has been proven in the past that parental involvement promotes an immediate positive change in performance on homework assignments, improved scores on standardized achievement tests, and improvement in basic skills such as reading and writing. The earlier parents get involved in their children's educational process, the better students tend to do in their overall performance (Shepard, 1995). When this partnership is formed, continual communication is established, an understanding of role expectations and preferences is achieved and parental involvement is maintained (Gettinger and Guetschow, 1998).

How Parents can become Involved