by Roy Taylor, Community News Correspondent

Parkside’s Appreciation Builds Cooperation (ABC) Club was founded to open the lines of communication between families and staff members-and shows that every staff member’s efforts are recognized.

“When we first started the program, some teachers felt there was an adversarial relationship between them and the parents of students,” explains Linda Spencer, a Parkside parent who served on the school’s Building Leadership Team. Spencer says it wasn’t a sense of hostility, but that every contact between parents and teachers seemed to have to do with “why did you give my child this grade.”

According to Spencer, former Parkside Guidance Counselor Kathy Smalley had heard of an “Adopt-a-Teacher” program utilized at other schools, and they decided to implement that sort of program at Parkside.

“We knew that we could prove that teachers and families could have a very positive relationship,” she explains.

“Our program is different from Adopt-a-Teacher in that every staff member in the building is “adopted” at Parkside,” Spencer notes. “Every teacher, support person, and office worker is adopted by a family during the student registration,” she explains. The faculty member fills out an information sheet listing such things as their birthday, favorite color, and hobby so the family has an idea of what to surprise them with, she says.

Families have the opportunity to sign up for a specific staff member to adopt, but are not guaranteed they will be matched with that person if several families wish to adopt him or her, according to Spencer. “But most families are very happy about whomever they end up with,” she notes.

“Then generally every month, the family sends anonymous gifts to the staff member to encourage them and show them support,” Spencer explains.

“This program was not designed for the gift to be a monetary kind of thing. A lot of the staff receive homemade goodies or just a note saying thank you,” she adds.

Barb Bush, a seventh and eighth-grade teacher at Parkside, says the program is “fun for students as well as a nice boost for the teachers.”

According to Bush, some examples of popular gifts staff members receive are flowers, cookies, notes of encouragement, plants, lunch, or balloons.

Spencer stresses the process is anonymous throughout the school year, and families may reveal their identities when classes are over in June.

“The staff members want to sincerely thank the families once they find out who they are, but also send thank you notes on a monthly basis during the school year,” she says. “It’s kind of neat to see the thank you notes addressed ‘to my adopted family’ from the faculty.”

Some families also want to remain anonymous forever and Spencer honors their wishes.

Another area school utilizing a similar program is Fairview Elementary School in Normal.

Twilla Eikhorst, a secretary at Fairview, says the school has been utilizing their Adopt-a-Teacher program for several years.

“The Parent Teacher Organization is in charge of making sure every staff member at Fairview is adopted, so it’s not just adopting the teachers,” she explains.

“It’s fun, because sometimes the gifts are delivered while the child is sitting in their adopted teacher’s classroom, and he or she has to remain cool so they don’t reveal their identity,” Eickhorst adds.

To summarize the intent and result of Parkside’s project, Spencer recalls one teacher who was having a bad day.

“It was so bad, she almost had tears in her eyes,” she says. As the teacher was trying to focus her thoughts on how to make it through to the final bell, she received a balloon and card of encouragement from her adopted family.

“It changed her entire outlook from that of a bad day to a great one.”