than me. Seems like he should be able to do that at a school
like yours. You call me if he don’t get rid of that D.”
Reversing the Trend
Maclin and Whiteside’s visit was one of nearly 700 that
have been conducted this year in the Maplewood Richmond
Heights School District, a small urban district nestled next to
the city of St. Louis, Missouri. Maplewood Richmond Heights
has been working for almost a decade to rebuild itself into a
high-quality school district after years of problems, including
low test scores and a high dropout rate. In 2000, more than
one-half of the families who could attend the public school
chose not to do so, even though parochial or private education put a major strain on their budgets. Other families
chose to move to another community when their children
became school age. But in 2000, a courageous board of education decided to reverse the trend and set about rebuilding
the school district into an asset to the community, one
where parents felt connected and involved in their children’s
education.
Today Maplewood Richmond Heights is a thriving urban
school district serving 1,200 students. More than one-half of
“When I’m in someone’s living
room, I’m in their world—
and I hope I do things right.”
A Program That Works
Home visits are not a new idea. Head Start requires teachers
to make home visits during the academic year, and many
kindergartens in the United States require home visits by
teachers before school starts. In 1998, teachers in California
began visiting students’ homes. The programs resulted in an
increase in academic achievement and test scores, improved
attendance and homework completion, increased parental
involvement, and improved attitudes about school on the part
of both students and parents. 1
The Teacher Home Visit Program in St. Louis was inspired
by these programs. In 2005, Karen Kalish of the St. Louis–
based Estelle W. and Karen S. Kalish Foundation decided
to launch a similar program in the St. Louis area, including
Parents at Home
the school’s families live in poverty. The school population is
42 percent black and 45 percent white; 13 percent of students
are from other countries. Test scores are rising. Last fall, the
school district was awarded Performance with Distinction by
the state’s department of education, a recognition of high performance on a variety of achievement indicators.
Although the path to improvement was not easy, some
important elements supported the change. In real estate, the
key word is location. At Maplewood Richmond Heights, the
key word is relationship. Everyone—from board members,
to administrators and teachers, to bus drivers and cooks—
knows that the district is committed to personalized service
and to building strong relationships with students and
families. The district accomplishes this in many ways,
including ensuring that teachers in kindergarten through
8th grade loop with their students for two years. Over the
past three years, the district has added a new tool to support
relationship building and personalized service—the home
visit program.
Maplewood Richmond Heights. The results of a pilot conducted in the district in 2008 far exceeded expectations.
Parents who had never set foot in school were suddenly
coming for conferences, and participating teachers raved
about how quickly they were able to establish classroom
routines in the fall following summer visits. Teachers found
it much easier to make sensitive phone calls when they had
previously established positive relationships with parents.
The district decided to expand the program to all the schools
in the district. This year marks the second year of full
implementation.
In just three years, the Teacher Home Visit Program has
become a crucial component of the district’s success, and the
results have been startling. At the end of the first semester
of the 2010–11 school year, discipline referrals throughout
the district were down 45 percent, and parent attendance at
each school’s first open house was up by almost 20 percent.
Students’ school attendance is nudging up as well and is
slightly higher than last year’s rate.
