Understanding the Perspectives of Secondary School Teachers on Home-School Collaboration in Inclusive Classrooms

This study explored the lived experiences, challenges encountered, coping mechanisms and insights of public secondary school teachers on home-school partnership in the implementation of inclusive education in schools. The participants were coming from F. Bangoy National High School, Division of Davao City, DepEd Region XI. There were ten (10) secondary school teachers who participated in the study. This study made use of a phenomenological approach to extract the ideas from the participants. The participants were purposely selected as representatives from the group of secondary school teachers who are considered as inclusive teachers. 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: fostering supportive connections, valuing collaborative efforts, considering healthy communications and hurdling with collaboration issues. Further, there were three (3) subthemes identified on the hurdling with collaboration issues, these are differing expectations, lack of time for partnership and lack of specialized trainings. The coping mechanisms of teacher participants on the challenges they experienced were parent-teacher proactive communication and participation in trainings. The educational management insights drawn from the participants were communication impacts success and the value of continuous professional development. Thus, it is crucial for the DepEd administrators to provide a capacity enhancement training and development for programs for teachers. These programs would specifically target the areas of managing inclusive classrooms, adopting instructional methodologies within school settings, and fostering effective collaboration with parents. In addition, the curriculum may be enhanced to encompass subjects pertaining to the development and maintenance of collaborative relationships with parents and other stakeholders.