Fall, 1996 No. 1 National Network of Partnership Schools
State Leaders
Organize Partnership ProgramsPresently, seven states are members of the National Network of Partnership Schools: Alaska, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Utah, along with the Department of Defense System. Other states are completing their membership forms. What state leadership activities help districts and schools develop positive, permanent programs of partnership?
Every state in the National Network organizes its work and leadership differently. This is not surprising. State policies, the number of districts, schools, students, and other conditions vary greatly from state to state. For example, Maryland has 24 districts and Wisconsin has over 400 districts. Alaska must consider families who live at great distances from their schools and teachers who live far from any one meeting place. Importantly, despite their differences, all states in the National Network of Partnership Schools have identified an office, department, or Center with staff specialists who are in charge of helping districts and schools improve school-family-community partnerships.
WISCONSIN provides small grants to Action Teams for School, Family, and Community Partnerships in over 100 schools. A talented staff headed by Jane Grinde, Ruth Anne Landsverk, and Stan Potts, issue a newsletter--Sharesheet--to help schools in the Wisconsin network share good ideas for partnership with each others. These leaders are in their third year of working with action teams and scaling up their program to include more schools. In July, over 400 educators and parents attended a training workshop supported by the Department of Public Instruction to gain ideas, share best practices, and plan their work for 1996-97.
UTAH has been helping districts and schools develop partnerships for about five years. The Utah Center on Families in Education, headed by Gary Lloyd is a fully collaborative activity sponsored by the state department of education and the state PTA. Leadership activities include grants to demonstration districts and schools to develop programs of partnership. The Center also produces products such as calendars and bookmarks with ideas for good partnerships, conducts an information hotline--Edinfo--in English and in Spanish with information for families on numerous educational topics, and makes annual awards for excellent practices of partnership. (See the School Report column for Utah's approach to parent-teacher-student conferences.)
CONNECTICUT's State Department of Education partnership program is directed by Harriet Feldlaufer. Her office is working collaboratively with a regional assistance center, SERC, led by Nancy Krafcik and Barbara Slone. Leaders in both locations are helping sets of schools use Action Teams for School, Family, and Community Partnerships to develop their partnership programs. More than a dozen teams participated in a training and planning workshop this summer to prepare for the 1996-97 school year. Connecticut's collaboration is a good example of how leaders within a state can work together to help more schools focus on school-family-community partnerships.
MARYLAND's state leaders, Irene Hechler and Mary Wilmer, have designed a district-based approach for building partnerships state-wide, with support from State Superintendent Nancy Grasmick. Eight districts out of twenty-four are helping schools form Action Teams for School, Family, and Community Partnerships and action plans for 1996-97. Maryland's state leaders will be "scaling up" their program this year to include more districts and their schools. (See the District Record column for an example of how facilitators and superintendents work together.)
