How Involved are Parents at Boarding Schools?

Posted on Tue, Apr 27, 2010 @ 08:00 AM by Allison "AJ" Miller
Tagged with: Co-Ed Schools, College Prep Schools, Learning Differences , Summer Boarding

Parents of students at private schools, public schools or day schools typically are more involved in daily school life than parents of students at boarding schools. For the most part, this is a function of geographic proximity – boarding schools are often farther away than the local public high school or even the day school a few miles away. Significant involvement in a boarding school that is hours away is logistically more difficult for most parents.

 

The type of involvement parents are generally able to have at a local school, such as participating in fundraising activities on-site, attending parent-teacher association meetings, serving in a leadership capacity for various school events or activities is easier when travel to the school takes only a few minutes. When boarding schools are hours away, parental involvement is naturally diminished.

 

That is not to say that parents do not support the boarding school their teen attends – far from it. But they support the school more from a distance.

 

At boarding schools, most parents demonstrate their support of the school financially, through annual giving or donations for particular fundraising efforts. Parents who are nearby may also volunteer to spend time on campus as needed.

 

The decision to send a child to boarding school requires a great deal of trust in a school, its administrators, faculty and staff. Once that level of trust is established, parents may feel less of a need for constant communication from the school, or for a presence on campus. And while boarding schools certainly welcome the involvement of their parents in school activities, unless they are able to be physically present on a regular basis, involvement in larger school issues, such as long-range planning or oversight, becomes more difficult.