For third-grade teacher Amber Nierman, Back-to-School Night “sets the tone for the school year.”
“It builds the foundation and connection for a strong home-school partnership,” she said, “and shows that student success is a team effort.”
Next week, Hampton Roads Academy will set this team effort in motion by welcoming its students’ families to campus for Back-to-School Night. The event, held at 6:00 pm on Wednesday, September 3, for the Lower School and the same time the following evening for the Middle and Upper Schools, reflects the central role that the faculty-family relationship plays in the learning experience at HRA.
Just as our small class sizes allow our teachers to forge robust bonds with their students, our tight-knit school community invites parents and other family members to take an active part in each Navigator’s education. During the Year of Connections, we will celebrate the relationship between families and faculty members that helps to extend our students’ growth, both as learners and as individuals, beyond the walls of our classrooms.
Building Bonds
Upper School science teacher Lauren Oaks welcomes families to her classroom with a chemistry demonstration on Back-to-School Night
Back-to-School Night inaugurates this crucial relationship for the year ahead. As HRA Kindergarten teacher Josephine Kovalcik explained, “This event is an initial gathering of families that will launch each classroom community as a collaborative, informed, and supportive unit.”
After welcoming families into their classrooms, our teachers lay the groundwork for this collaboration in several ways. On the most basic level, they introduce families to their goals and expectations, the material and skills students will master over the course of the year, and key dates to remember. Some teachers also provide tutorials in navigating OnCampus, HRA’s online learning management system, to equip parents and guardians to support their children’s studies at home.
Many instructors view Back-to-School Night as an opportunity to model the life of their classrooms by displaying samples of student work and recreating class activities.
AP Literature teacher and Dean of Student Life Laurie Hager, for example, likes to pose the same question to families that she asks her twelfth-grade students on the first day of school: Why does the study of literature matter? “My hope is that this practice models my values as an educator,” Hager said. “I am curious to know what my students (and their parents/guardians) think, I value their insights, and I actively work to create an atmosphere where everyone feels welcome and ‘heard.’”
Ninth-grade biology teacher Katie Schwizer, likewise, often includes a science demonstration that her students experienced earlier in the week. More importantly, she uses the evening session with families to highlight areas where students have struggled in the past and “clue parents in on what they can do at home to help their child start the year off on the right foot, and perhaps with a little extra confidence.”
Most crucially of all, Back-to-School Night allows our faculty members to connect with families at a personal level.
“Back-to-School Night offers teachers and parents the opportunity to connect face-to-face, fostering trust and open communication,” said Middle School history and Latin teacher Christine Joyce. “This allows for a partnership that supports student success throughout the school year.”
Achieving Excellence through Community
A hallmark of Hampton Roads Academy is the sense of community that pervades every aspect of the educational experience. The relationships that begin at Back-to-School Night communicate to our families that they and their children will be embraced by this community—now and always. And with their teachers and families aligned behind them, our students know that they do not walk their academic paths alone.
A sense of belonging within a community that encompasses school and home is vital at all grade levels. For Lower School students, a strong teacher-family partnership signals that their education is part of a long-term journey, in which they will be supported every step of the way, through Middle School and beyond.
For those in Grades 5 through 8, this partnership provides an invaluable structure in a period of increased curricular rigor and significant social and developmental changes. According to Middle School English and reading teacher Karen Massengill, “maintaining an open line of communication between parent and teacher is important in ensuring consistency and success in creating independent learners, thinkers, and young adults.”
Once students encounter greater academic challenges in our Upper School, coordination between home and the classroom is perhaps more vital than ever.
“It’s important to stay in touch with parents, so that together, we can encourage the students to build skills that foster independence while providing a warm safety-net in which to catch them, should they slip along the way,” Katie Schwizer said. “My hope is that this partnership invites and encourages parents to stay a part of their students’ life at school well beyond ninth grade. I want students to get the sense that the adults in their lives, both at home and at school, are working together for their benefit.”
As a twelfth-grade instructor who works closely with HRA’s college counseling team, Laurie Hager has the privilege of observing firsthand the growth that this collaboration promotes, as students approach graduation and become ever more responsible and self-reliant. She views senior parents’ bittersweet final Back-to-School Night as an occasion to encourage “proactive student-to-teacher communication, which anticipates professional interactions with their future university professors.”
From our Navigators’ earliest classroom experiences to their first steps into a larger world beyond HRA, families are indispensable partners in helping students feel safe taking risks, holding themselves to a high standard, and striving for excellence in all their pursuits. The faculty of Hampton Roads Academy could not be more thrilled to embark on this journey with families at this year’s Back-to-School Night.
