The purpose of this report is to provide descriptive statistics on barriers to parent-school involvement that are available from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–11 (ECLS-K:2011). The brief begins by examining the level of parents’ involvement in activities in their children’s schools and the specific types of activities in which they participated when their children were enrolled in school. Then, the brief describes the types of barriers to participation that parents face.

Figure 3. Percentage of second-graders, by parents’ reported level of involvement and reported barriers to participation: School year 2012–13

NOTE: Parents’ reported level of school involvement is created from the question, “During this school year, how many times have you or other adults in your household gone to meetings or participated in activities at {CHILD}’s school?” The question was open-ended, and the response categories were created based on the distribution of the responses. Respondents who participated in 0–3 activities are categorized as having “low” involvement. Respondents who participated in 4–6 activities are categorized as having “moderate” involvement. Respondents who participated in 7 or more activities are categorized as having “high” involvement. Estimates represent all children in the kindergarten class of 2010–11 in the 2012–13 school year, when 94 percent of 2010–11 kindergartners were in second grade. Estimates are weighted by W6CS6P_6A0. Detail may not sum to total due to rounding and/or missing data. 
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–11 (ECLS-K:2011), Kindergarten-Second Grade Restricted-Use Data File.

The four most commonly reported barriers were “family members can’t get time off work” (48 percent), “inconvenient meeting times” (33 percent), “no child care” (17 percent), and “[parents] don’t hear about things going on at school that [they] might want to be involved in” (12 percent). The three least common barriers were “problems with transportation to the school” (4 percent), “school does not make family feel welcome” (3 percent), and “problems with safety going to the school” (1 percent). The most common barriers reported were the same for parents who had low, moderate, and high involvement.

Among second-graders whose parents reported low involvement in school activities:

• 59 percent had parents who reported an inability to get time off from work as a barrier. Higher percentages for this barrier were reported for students who had two parents employed full time (68 percent) or who had a single parent employed full time (73 percent).
• 46 percent had parents who reported inconvenient meeting times as a barrier. Compared to this average, higher percentages for this barrier were reported for Black students (62 percent), while lower percentages were reported for White students (37 percent).

To view the full Statistics in Brief, please visit: https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2017165

This publication was prepared for NCES under Contract No. ED-IES-12-D-0002 with American Institutes for Research. Mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.