(formerly Home and School Association). A society formed in the local church and coordinated through the North American Division Department of Education, with the purpose of fostering good home and school relationships. It was first called the Parent-Teacher Association. In 1922 the work was divided: the section that gave special attention to parent education was called the Home Commission, and the section that fostered good home and school relationships was given the name Home and School Association.
The Home Commission was sponsored originally by the Education, Young People’s Missionary Volunteer, Home Missionary, Sabbath School, and Medical departments. In 1941 the work of the Home Commission was integrated with the Department of Education, and the term Home and School Association was used for societies with schools and Christian Home Council for societies without schools. In 1956 the name Home and School was chosen to cover both types of organizations.
The society was concerned with the infant, the preschooler and schoolchild, the teenager, the young adult, and the husband and wife.
This association was charged with the promoting and fostering of home and parent education as a regular part of the work of the education departments at the General, union, and local conference levels.
The Home and School Association served elementary and intermediate church schools and day academies, and promoted the enrollment of every Seventh-day Adventist child in one of these schools. It was concerned with pupil motivation, teachers’ welfare, parents’ interests, financial aid, and with establishing good working relations between the home and the school, between the parent and the teacher.
The founder and mainspring of organized parent education among Seventh-day Adventists was A. W. Spalding, who served the General Conference as full-time secretary of the Home Commission for 19 years (1922–1941). Mrs. Florence Rebok served as Parent and Home Education secretary from 1941 to 1947 (during which time The Adventist Home and Child Guidance were compiled), and Mrs. Arabella Moore Williams from 1947 to 1954; Archa O. Dart served from 1954 to 1970, and W. J. Cannon from 1970 to 1975, when the work was taken over by Home and Family Service.