NNPS State Leadership

Although states differ greatly in the number of districts, schools, and populations of students and families served, all states want to have excellent districts and schools and successful students. Just about every state has a policy to improve family and community involvement in children’s education. NNPS assists state departments of education to organize leadership on partnerships and to improve policies and programs of family and community involvement.

A state-level leader for partnerships is needed to coordinate efforts of family involvement and to communicate about partnerships across departments and across jurisdictions. Leadership on partnerships should encourage districts and schools –statewide – to develop plans, implement activities, and meet the requirements and expectations for effective partnership programs in state policy and in the No Child Left Behind Act – Section 1118 and other sections of the law.

NNPS supports state leaders for partnerships by providing professional development and on-going technical assistance to increase knowledge on school, family, and community partnerships, organize state-level plans, and encourage districts and schools across the state to increase the quality of their goal-oriented partnership programs.

This section of the website provides tools, guidelines, and information on how states in NNPS are working to develop state-level leadership, clearer policies for partnerships, and useful information and outreach to districts and schools.

State Line and Leadership Line. Reprints of columns from NNPS’s semiannual newsletter, Type 2, include examples of activities conducted by state leaders and guidelines for improving partnership programs.

Program Evaluation. Annual UPDATE surveys from NNPS collect data that will help your state evaluate the quality and progress of its partnership program. Districts and schools in your state that join NNPS also will be able to use UPDATEs to evaluate their programs of family and community involvement. See other "built in" evaluation tools in the NNPS Handbook for Action that help schools’ Action Teams for Partnerships monitor progress.

On this website, also see:

Materials that state leaders may use to make presentations and conduct workshops on partnerships in the section Publications and Products.
Ideas from state departments of education in NNPS in the annual collections of Promising Partnership Practices in the section Success Stories.
Summaries of programs of NNPS Partnership State Award winners in the section Success Stories.

Some award winners provide their website addresses for others to visit. For example, explore California’s policy on parental involvement on its website at http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/ms/po/policy89-01-sep1994.asp.
Opportunities for professional development from NNPS at the annual fall Leadership Development Conference and other workshops in the section Professional Development.
Other benefits and services from NNPS for members.

For more information and planning tools, state leaders will find clear and useful guidelines in Chapter 7 of the NNPS Handbook: Epstein, et al. (2002). School, family, and community partnerships: Your handbook for action, second edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. The chapter includes background information on state leadership, a list of state leaders’ roles, sources of funding for partnership programs, a leadership checklist, and sample One-Year Leadership Plans for partnerships.

Each state that joins NNPS must identify a leader for partnerships who becomes the Key Contact to NNPS. On the website, see the section Join NNPS for more information.