Seven schools, seven districts, two organizations, and three state departments of education won 2007 Partnership Awards from the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS) at Johns Hopkins University. This is the largest number of winners since the start of the awards program in 2000. The response may be due to the new awards applications, which emphasize best practices, and a sign of members’ growing confidence in the quality of their work on partnerships.
School winners were Highlands Elementary School and Kennedy Junior High School in Naperville IL; Phalen Lake Elementary, St. Paul, MN; Robert Frost and Whittier Elementary Schools in Pasco WA; Roberts Elementary Schools, Wayne, PA; and Spooner Elementary School, Spooner, WI. These schools documented involvement activities that reach out to involve all families and that involve families and community partners in ways that increase student success in school.
District winners were Hampton City Schools, VA; Local Districts 4 and 8 in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), CA; Naperville Community Unit School District 203, IL; Pasco School District, WA; Saint Paul Public Schools, MN; and Virginia Beach City Public Schools, VA. Organization winners were the California PARENT Center at the June Burnett Institute, San Diego, CA and Strategic Learning Initiatives, Chicago, IL. Districts and organizations demonstrated how they are meeting NNPS’s dual requirements for conducting leadership activities and for facilitating the work of individual schools’ Action Teams for Partnerships (ATPs) in developing their site-based programs of family and community involvement.
Leaders for partnerships in the California, Hawaii, and Maryland State Departments of Education won Partnership State Awards. They provided evidence of how their work is improving state policies and how they are encouraging districts and schools to develop their partnership programs.
Members of NNPS use research-based structures to organize their work at the school, district, and state levels, but must tailor their plans and activities to meet specific goals and policies in their own locations. According to Joyce Epstein, Director of NNPS, “This mix of common structures and customized actions in each location produces stronger and more sustainable partnership programs.” The winning programs received an award plaque and one free registration to a future NNPS professional development conference. Ten programs – five schools and five districts – also received a cash prize of $500 to recognize sustained progress in program development. Meet these programs on pp 6-7 of this issue.
Read their stories on the NNPS website, www.partnershipschools.org, in the section Success Stories and see many of their activities in Promising Partnership Practices 2007.