Partnership District Award Winners - 2009

Pasco School District

Pasco, WA

Back Row (L to R): Ofelia Rodriguez, Bill Leggett, Saul Martinez, Sherrry Lancon,
Saundra Hil (Superintendent), John Hergert, Pete Felsted, Kirsten Merrill.

Front Row (L to R): Jessica Wallace (NNPS Key Contact), Liz Flynn,
Lorrain Landon (NNPS Key Contact).

Pasco School District, a three-time Partnership District Award winner is demonstrating, every day, that schools with over 70% culturally and linguistically diverse students and families with low incomes can develop well-organized, goal-linked programs of school, family, and community partnerships. In Pasco, the Superintendent and talented district leaders for partnerships have made family and community involvement an expected part of school and district life. And, these programs are contributing to student success in school.

District-Level Leadership for Partnerships: ATP/PEAK! End-of-Year Celebration

Pasco’s Office of School and Family Partnerships and Office of Public Affairs collaborated to celebrate the accomplishments of all schools’ Action Teams for Partnerships (ATPs) in the 08-09 school year and Partners in Educating All Kids (PEAK), which includes the business partners in all schools. With the theme of You are the Magic, this year’s ATP/PEAK! End-of-Year Celebration included an evening with a catered dinner, PEAK and ATP displays of excellent practices from each school, welcome speeches, awards, a keynote, juggling and “magic” entertainment, and door prizes. Student volunteers from the high school provided child care and other assistance. Translations were provided for Spanish-speaking parents.

Each school’s ATP set up a best practices display board. Each was recognized with an award for something unique about their program, and each school’s PEAK partner also was recognized. In addition to Title I funds and funds from the Office of Public Affairs, Wal-Mart donated $1000 for this important end-of-year event. It is important for district leaders to recognize the hard work and collegial efforts that contribute to successful school-based partnership programs. By sharing best practices in this way, all schools see, hear, and feel the district’s commitment to strong partnerships and gain ideas for strengthening their programs in the next school year.

Facilitation of Schools’ ATPs: Help ATP Chairs with Three Useful Tools

Three cluster meetings each year are conducted that bring together ATP chairs and co-chairs for professional development and for collegial networking. In 08-09, these meetings offered ATP Chairs three new tools to help them plan and conduct activities: ATP Chairperson’s Self-Evaluation, ATP Parent Job Description, and ATP Chairperson’s Video.

To help ATP chairs and co-chairs share responsibilities with other team members, district leaders used the NNPS Handbook for Action as a resource and worked with the Executive Director of Instruction and Achievement to create a self-assessment for chairs to determine if they were doing a good job of delegating tasks to others.
A second goal was to identify parents who would be good candidates for the ATP. Chairs and co-chairs gave input for a parent-member’s job description, including the expected level of parents’ commitment, qualifications, requirements, and ATP training. These ideas were combined in a document for chairs to recruit and retain active parents for their ATPs. The district leaders believed that if parents knew more about their ATP roles, they would be better able to decide if wanted to serve on the team.
To underscore the accomplishments of ATP chairpersons, the district facilitators commissioned a short video to show at the ATP/ PEAK! End-of-Year Celebration. With information from the district coordinator in the neighboring Kennewick School District, Pasco recruited videographers to shoot and edit a film in which Pasco ATP Chairpersons shared what they loved about working with their ATP and offered advice to new team leaders. By highlighting the chairs’ positive experiences, district leaders gained a new tool for recruiting chairs and for use in team-training workshops. The video is available on the Pasco School District’s web site, http://www.psd1.org .

See Pasco’s Partnership District Awards in 2007 and 2008 and examples of Promising Partnership Practices on the website, www.partnershipschools.org, in the section Success Stories. To learn more about this district’s work on school, family, and community partnerships, visit http://www.psd1.org.