The case study of the relationship between classroom life and home for a minority child in an urban school illustrates the complex influences the home has on the child and the ways in which a culturally sensitive teacher can interact with parents in planning for the child's education. The teacher of a combined second-third grade at an urban school characterized by a high degree of parent participation noted that one girl was having great academic difficulties. The child's family found nothing to appeal to them in the programs provided to involve parents, but were obviously committed and concerned parents, whose cultural backgrounds and own personalities made them willing to wait for their child to learn to read in the face of considerable pressure by the school system to enroll their daughter in special education. Ways in which the teacher worked for the child's academic achievement while respecting the wishes of her parents to keep her in the neighborhood school illustrate the multiple points of entry a school or teacher can use to gain the confidence of parents in working together. (Contains 28 references.) (SLD)