More parents helping out in school groups

MORE CITY parents are getting involved in their children’s education, new statistics show.

Family engagement is widely regarded as a key to successful schools, but the city has struggled with it for years, despite spending millions of dollars to promote it.

Now schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña (photo) says data indicate more parents took part in their children’s schooling for the school year that ended in June. She credits a number of new investments and an overhaul of the city’s family outreach efforts.

“The more parents know about their schools, the more they can help out,” she said.

Roughly 38,000 additional city parents attended parent-teacher conferences in 2016-17 year, compared with the previous school year, according to city records. That’s a gain of almost 2%, to 2.02 million. In addition, 66,000 more parents attended school-based workshops in 2016-17 compared with the previous year, about a 6% increase, to 1.1 million.