FEBRUARY 2003 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT NEWSLETTER
Parent and community involvement is a characteristic of high
performing schools. Families are a vital ingredient in ensuring
student success, and many educators ask, “How do we assist parents
to be more involved with their children's education?” This issue of
the Professional Development Newsletter presents resources for
building partnerships with families to improve student achievement.
1. Six Avenues to Family Engagement
2. The Impact of Family Engagement on Student Achievement
3. Public Information Network Action Guide
4. Support for Federal Parental Involvement Requirement
5. Standards from the National PTA
6. When Everyone is Involved
7. Engaging Parents for School Reform
8. Guidebook of Strategic Interventions
9. "Strong Neighborhoods: Strong Schools"
10. From the U.S. Department of Education
11. Fathers Matter!
12. The National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education
13. The National Center for Family and Community Connections
14. From the Knowledge Loom
15. The Forest Metaphor
16. Parent Involvement Toolkit
CURRENT EVENTS
17. Conference for Teacher Leaders
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1. SIX AVENUES TO FAMILY ENGAGEMENT
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Joyce Epstein, director of the Center on School, Family, and
Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University, has identified
six major approaches to linking families, schools, and other
community organizations. The six approaches are: providing
information about parenting, communicating with parents, offering
volunteer opportunities, supporting learning at home, engaging
parents in decision-making, and supporting community collaboration.
Find out more in this concise article from the Harvard Education
Letter Research Online (September/October 1997).
http://www.edletter.org/past/issues/1997-so/sixtypes.shtml
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2. THE IMPACT OF FAMILY ENGAGEMENT ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
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Parent and community involvement is a characteristic of high
performing schools, and the report “A New Wave of Evidence: The
Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student
Achievement” synthesizes research studies in this area. Authored by
the National Center for Family and Community Connections with Schools
at the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL), this 234
page report examines studies that discuss the impact of parent and
community involvement on student achievement, effective strategies to
connect schools, families and communities, and parent and community
organizing efforts to improve schools. A section of the report
offers a series of recommendations for utilizing research findings in
a practical way. The entire report can be downloaded from the
Internet.
http://www.sedl.org/connections/resources/evidence.pdf
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3. PUBLIC INFORMATION NETWORK ACTION GUIDE
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The Public Education Network (PEN) has released "An Action Guide
for Community and Parent Leaders" intended to inform parents,
community leaders, and educators about No Child Left Behind. The
guide targets 10 areas of the law, and provides counsel on engaging
parents and community members as advocates for improved education.
The entire report can be downloaded from the Internet.
http://www.publiceducation.org/pubs/pubpreorder/orderform.asp
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4. SUPPORT FOR FEDERAL PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT REQUIREMENT
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Schools receiving funds from No Child Left Behind legislation are
required to have parent involvement that has been developed with
the involvement of parents. The Parent Teachers Association article
"Parent Involvement Policies and the Law" helps parents understand
the law and offers suggestions for becoming involved in policy
development at their school.
http://www.pta.org/parentinvolvement/helpchild/hc_piandlaw.asp
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5. STANDARDS FROM THE NATIONAL PTA
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The National PTA offers National Standards for Parent/Family
Involvement Programs, along with quality indicators that accompany
the standards. Standards and indicators are research based, and
designed to: promote meaningful parent and family participation,
raise awareness regarding effective programs, and provide guidelines
for schools to improve programs.
http://www.pta.org/programs/pfistand.htm
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6. WHEN EVERYONE IS INVOLVED
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The importance of building partnerships with parents and communities
is clear. Many times, building relationships with parent who speak
languages other than English is more challenging for school
personnel. The article “When Everyone is Involved: Parents and
Communities in School Reform” presents specific strategies for
Overcoming barriers to parental engagement for parents of English
Learners.
http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/ncbepubs/tasynthesis/framing/6parents.htm
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7. ENGAGING PARENTS FOR SCHOOL REFORM
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"Parent Engagement as a School Reform Strategy" (ERIC/CUE Digest
Number 135, 1998) summarizes research on effective practices for
involving parents to support school reform. The article includes
information on: characteristics of successful parent engagement
initiatives, building relationships based on common concerns, fostering
the collaborative leadership of principals, developing and training
parents and educators as leaders, training participants to improve
education, and other related topics.
http://www.ericfacility.net/ericdigests/ed419031.html
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8. GUIDEBOOK OF STRATEGIC INTERVENTIONS
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"Communities at Work: A Guidebook of Strategic Interventions for
Community Change" from The Public Education Network, outlines
six interventions that have been successfully used by schools and
communities to support public education. The guidebook examines
community dialogue, constituency building, engaging practitioners,
collaboration with districts, policy analysis, and legal strategies.
The guidebook includes a description of the intervention, examples
of the intervention at work, lessons learned from these efforts,
tools, and additional information.
http://www.publiceducation.org/download/CAW.pdf
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9. "STRONG NEIGHBORHOODS: STRONG SCHOOLS"
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This report from the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform
documents the positive impact that community organizing can have on
schools. In a study of efforts in five urban cities, community
organizing efforts increased community engagement with schools,
community capacity building, and organizational development of
community organizations. Community organizing work supported school
reform, and contributed to higher student achievement. Research
findings, implications for practice, and directions for future study
are included in the report.
http://www.crosscity.org/programs/indicators/findings.htm
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10. FROM THE U. S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
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The U. S. Department of Education Web site provides a variety of
resources for parents and families. Online publications are
available in the following areas: preparing children for school;
finding K-12 schools and aftercare programs; helping children learn
to read; supporting children's school success; helping child with special
needs, and helping children prepare and pay for college. Many
resources are available in both English and Spanish.
http://ed.gov/audience/audience.jsp?type=I&top=Parents+%26+Families
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11. FATHERS MATTER!
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The U. S. Department of Education has developed a kit that educators
and other professionals can use to increase family involvement in
education. “Fathers Matter! Involving Fathers in Children’s Learning”
outlines strategies for involving fathers at home, at school, and in the
community.
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/parents/fathers/
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12. THE NATIONAL COALITION FOR PARENT INVOLVEMENT IN EDUCATION
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The National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE)
encourages the involvement of families and communities in education,
and building relationships between home, school, and community
that enhance the education of all young people. An extensive
collection of resources on the topic are available through the Web
site, and through links to partner organizations.
http://www.ncpie.org/
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13. THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
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The National Center for Family and Community Connections with Schools
at the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL)
gathers information about current research and practices impacting
school, family, and community partnerships. The goal of the Center
is to share information and build knowledge about research, programs,
policies, and practices.
http://www.sedl.org/connections/resources/
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14. FROM THE KNOWLEDGE LOOM
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An extensive listing of resources that address school, family, and
community are available from The Knowledge Loom Web site.
Articles and publications on a variety of topics related to family
engagement can be accessed from this Web site.
http://knowledgeloom.org/resources.jsp?location=6&bpinterid=1051&spotlightid=1051
For those who could not open this link, copy the entire URL and
paste it into your browser address window.
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15. THE FOREST METAPHOR
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The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) Web site
presents resources on school-family-community partnerships. They
utilize a forest metaphor for illustrating the importance of
collaborative partnerships. Comparing the support system needed by
youth in order to experience success to that of the ecosystem needed
by young trees to grow healthy and strong, they state that “it takes
healthy schools, families, and communities to help ensure youth
success. Weakness in any part of the system puts our youth at risk.
Each part requires the support and collaboration of the others to be
effective.” A series of photographs illustrating this metaphor can
be downloaded from the Web site.
http://www.nwrel.org/partnerships/
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16. PARENT INVOLVEMENT TOOLKIT
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Recruiting New Teachers, Inc. (RNT) offers an online parent
involvement toolkit for middle and high school teachers called
“Connect for Success: Building a Teacher, Parent, Teen Alliance.”
The kit shows how to build alliances that help parents improve their
children’s academic achievement, discusses resources parents bring
to the table, and offers strategies that teacher can use to establish
open communication with parents.
http://www.recruitingteachers.org/news/2002toolkit.html
CURRENT EVENTS
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17. CONFERENCE FOR TEACHER LEADERS
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The 2003 Professional Development Conference for Teacher Leaders
(formerly the Mentor Teacher Conference) provides a forum to explore
how teachers, in their roles as leaders, contribute to achieving
excellence for student groups that have historically been denied
excellence by our school system. In-depth sessions offer help in
coaching new and veteran teachers to ensure their students achieve
excellence. This three-day conference, "Teachers Lead the Way:
Evidence of Excellence Through Equity" will be held March 24-26,
2003, in Palm Springs. There are opportunities to network with PAR,
BTSA, National Board Certified Teachers, and other teacher leaders.
Keynote speakers include Glenn Singleton and Amada Irma Perez.
For more information contact EduAlliance at 831-457-7991 or by e-mail
at http://www.edualliance.org.
This electronic newsletter is sponsored by the Region 8 California Professional Development Consortium (CPDC) administered by the Kern County Superintendent of Schools Office.
To subscribe or unsubscribe from this newsletter, or to subscribe to our other our free electronic Newsletters for Middle School or High School issues, email, call or fax Christina Doyle: email - cdoyle@kern.org, phone (661) 636-4331 or fax (661) 636-4135.
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