Parental Guidance: Exploring Elementary Teacher’s Experiences with Parent-Teacher Collaboration in an Inclusive Classroom

This study explored the lived experiences, challenges encountered, coping mechanisms and insights of public elementary school teachers in collaborating with parents in the implementation of inclusive education in schools. The participants were coming from DepEd Region XI, Division of Davao City, specifically in the schools of Paquibato District. There were ten (10) teachers who participated in the study, and were purposely selected. This study made use of a phenomenological approach to extract the ideas from the participants. The virtual in-depth interview was employed to gather significant information with regard to their respective lived experiences. Using the thematic analysis, the following themes emerged pertaining to their lived experiences: parent-teacher collaboration as a reciprocal commitment, parents who are satisfied with teachers’ efforts, positive parent-teacher communication, and teachers hurdling with collaboration challenges. Further, there were three (3) subthemes identified on the teachers hurdling with collaboration challenges, these are too much expectations for learners, limited parents’ availability, and teachers’ lack of professional preparations. The coping mechanisms of teacher participants on the challenges they experienced were: parent-teacher regular communication and continuing professional development for inclusive teachers. The educational management insights drawn from the participants were collaboration impacts academic success and preparation for inclusive teachers matters. Thus, The DepEd administrators and heads may craft teacher enhancement programs through face-to-face training or through webinars focusing on handling inclusive classes, implementing instructions in schools, and collaboration strategies with parents.