Parent Involvement

In PUB, parents play a very important role in advancing the intellectual, social, cultural, and career development of their children. PUB is not a place where parents just drop off their children. Rather it is a place where we all join together to help the children be the best that they can be. Some parents may feel that they aren't equipped to help their child in this way...but you are. There are no secrets - all that's needed is for you to show you care by being involved in PUB right along with them.

There are many different ways for parents to be involved in PUB. Some are required as a result of your child's membership in PUB; some are to enhance parents' experience. Others are voluntary and provide a chance to have some good old-fashioned fun. Yet others serve to raise funds to further enhance the participants' experience.

Standard Academic Year Parent Involvement

• Monthly Parent Association meetings including Financial Literacy Workshops 
• Thanksgiving Project (food drive, packing, and delivering Thanksgiving bags)
• Fall Fundraiser (product sales to support advocacy trip to DC for one parent/child pair)
• PUB Make-A-Difference Day (make & deliver lap blankets to nursing homes)
• OU Day at the Capitol
• FAFSA Workshop (in child’s senior year)

Standard Summer Academy Parent Involvement

• Weekly Parent Association meetings
• Nightly residence hall monitoring
• Planning and Implementing Annual Family Day Cookout
• Planning and Implementing Annual Gospelfest Scholarship Fundraiser

Parents also have an opportunity to advocate on behalf of TRiO-eligible populations through electronic technology and periodically in person. The fall fundraiser is to support the cost of a trip for a parent and participant who have been fully involved for at least an entire program year to participate in the Council for Opportunity in Education Policy Seminar.

Financial Literacy

Parents have a Financial Literacy curriculum that is implemented in the monthly PUB Parent Association meetings. Facilitated through a partnership with the Oakland University Credit Union, the curriculum cycles every 4 years and includes the following topics:

• Money Management: Cash Flow (Budgeting), Personal Net Worth, Financial Goal Setting
• Credit Management: Obtaining Credit, Using Credit
• Debt Management: Debt Measurement, Resolving Debt
• Risk Management: Insurance, Risk Management

Ultimately, with this background parents participate in PUB’s FAFSA Completion Workshop in January of their child’s high school senior year.

Examples of parent activities include: residence hall monitoring, fundraising, organizing Family Fun Day, the Annual Scholarship Gospelfest, and attending the Annual Parent Empowerment Conference. Proceeds from the winter fundraising drive go to support the participation of association officers and/or students in the annual Washington, DC Policy Seminar sponsored by the Council for Opportunity in Education (COE). All of this is organized and implemented under the umbrella of the Project Upward Bound Parent Association (PUBPA).

The "Guide to Parent Involvement" describes parent involvement opportunities along with the policies and procedures that govern their implementation. The PUBPA organizational structure was adopted at the Association's April 27, 2002, meeting. This documentation was first published and distributed in final form at the Saturday, May 4, 2002 meeting of PUBPA although many of the policies and practices were in place prior to that time.