Walnut Creek Elementary

At Walnut Creek, we put the old adage about “taking a village to raise a child” into practice. The more opportunities our “village members” have to become involved and engaged with our school, the more our students receive the academic and social-emotion support they need for success. Parent volunteers help teachers and staff member by getting materials ready, planning class parties and events and by chaperoning on field trips. Many community members serve as Partners in Education and mentors for our students.

Each fall, we highlight grade level expectations and promote parent resources with our Parent University. The event is created by having parents share with us through a survey what they want to learn about and what they need to help their child be successful. During this event, parents choose from a number of informative workshops that provide ideas and support for working with their children at home. There are also workshops on understanding Henry County Teaching and Learning standards, principal chat, MTSS, and other school based topics. Our parent university highlight our students’ academic talents and musical skills.

Additionally, throughout the school year we offer a variety of other trainings including literacy, math, science/STEM, social studies, and technology events and workshops. We make these events enjoyable and involving for the entire family. To promote engagement by extended family members, grandparents and extended family members are included with events like Grandparents’ Day and lunch with a love one. In spring of each year, parents and students are brought together for our Student-Led Conferences. During these conferences, students use the knowledge of themselves as learners and their data notebooks, to highlight their academic and social-emotional milestones and successes from throughout the year. Realizing that parents are our students’ first teachers, we strive to empower our parents with the tools they need to promote academic success and emotional well-being at home. Our parent resource room has a wealth of interactive activities that parents can checkout to use with their children. Our media center, fosters literacy by allowing parents to come in and check out books to share with their children at home. Connectivity and the belief in student capability is a priority for Walnut Creek Elementary school.