My name is Dr. Tanya Foster-DeMers. I want to welcome you to our site and share a little about myself. I’ve recently completed my twentieth year of teaching. This is a celebrated milestone for me, and the years were very special due to the time being spent on the front lines of the education battle. My entire professional teaching career has been spent in urban classrooms with extreme conditions of poverty and in settings where parents were often labeled as uninvolved. This negative labeling of parents birthed a natural curiosity regarding parent involvement and its many facets. If parents were not involved, then why not, what could be done, and how could I involve parents in a manner that directly led to measurable student academic success?
In 2009 I developed the Instructional At-Home Plan (IAHP)® program as a means to bridge the gap between the parent, the child, academic goals, and the educator. Although this program was developed as an academic tool, it didn’t take long for me to see its ability to influence parent expectation, motivation, and affirmation. When parents receive concrete academic goals with educator partnership and affirmation, they are willing and capable of impacting outcomes for their children. I am deeply committed to seeing a rebirth of the interest in the role of the parent as a means to closing both readiness and achievement gaps. The truth of the matter is, parents do desire involvement, and research has proven that despite poverty and/or race, with the proper approach their involvement can help close the achievement gap. The TAF Instructional At-Home Plan (IAHP)® program has proven to be that proper approach.
