Other districts promote Glenbard speaker series

A parent education series in Glenbard High School District 87 has started to make others in the area take notice.

Just more than a year after a roughly $100,000 grant from the Cebrin Goodman Center pumped some life — and much-needed money — into the 15-year-old Glenbard Parent Series, school districts in Lisle and Wheaton have started to promote it, too.

The series brings in national parenting experts for free programs at least once a month. The sessions are open to parents throughout the region.

When a Lisle High School parent told Lisle Unit District 202 officials about the program, they decided to share the information with the rest of their parents.

“All educational systems have similar goals,” said Christine Messina, Lisle's director of curriculum. “Any research shows that the highest performing schools include parents as partners, as well as community members, students and teachers. Everyone should be involved in the stake of a learning community.”

Two presentations will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 9, at Glenbard East High School, 1014 S. Main St. in Lombard.

Author Ron Taffel, a highly sought New York-based expert, will lead “Confident Parenting in a World of Change Breaking Through to the Modern Teenager.”

At the same time, in the school's library, Lourdes Ferrer of the DuPage Regional Office of Education will lead a Spanish-language program about preparing students for college.

Lisle runs a student-focused program that provides a nice complement to the parenting program in Glenbard, Messina said. A similar program in Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 also has begun promoting the Glenbard program.

“We have always known that anytime you develop a strong partnership with parents in the community, you get strong results,” Messina said. “If we can build a partnership (between Lisle and Glenbard), why would we not take advantage of that?”

Messina has posted the Glenbard information on the front page of the district's website and plans to continue to do so for future presentations.

The series has come a long way since the Goodman Center's donation last year.

National television crews made their way to promote the program. Parents have given it rave reviews and the program has been mentioned in stories nationwide dealing with parent universities.

With the grant, student and community projects Coordinator Gilda Ross was able to beef up the program with more renowned speakers. Before the grant, Ross said the program brought in one speaker a year. Now, it has expanded to include at least one speaker per month and this year added Spanish-language programs for Hispanic parents.

“The bottom line is anyone who looks at this lineup really marvels at the caliber of the monthly program,” she said. “Usually, you might be able to pull off one person like this each year. But each one is a star, A-caliber speaker who can draw a crowd because of the name.”

As other districts promote the series, Ross said it underlines the program's main goal of helping parents regardless of where they live.

“It really is a happy thing to see where we are today, with a sense of sharing and community,” she said. “It's not around boundaries and school districts and towns. There are issues that all parents deal with. We're all in the same boat.”