Each year, NNPS Facilitators conduct web conferences for district leaders and for school teams across the United States and Canada. Web conferences, conducted for 90 minutes, are short workshops with targeted information and activities on essential partnership program components. This professional development from NNPS, currently free to members, is growing in popularity because it requires no travel. Participants “attend” the conference at their own sites, receive and follow Power Point presentations, conduct focused activities to apply the information to their own programs, and are able to network with NNPS staff and members from across the country.
Web Conference for New District Leaders
In December 2008, NNPS Facilitators held a web conference to help new district leaders learn about their roles and responsibilities for conducting district-level leadership activities and for providing direct facilitation to schools’ Action Teams for Partnerships. Sixteen district leaders from 11 states participated in this conference.
Attendees not only received information from Darcy Hutchins and colleagues, but also shared best practices and discussed how to collaborate with colleagues, obtain funding, and help schools build their capacities to develop, sustain, and evaluate their partnership programs for student success. The Web Conference for New District Leaders, conducted each fall, is an excellent resource for individuals who cannot travel to Baltimore to attend the annual District Leadership Institute.
Web Conferences for Schools’ ATPs
In past years, NNPS held one web conference for schools’ ATPs that were beginning their school-family-community partnership program. This year, demand was so high that three web conferences for ATPs were conducted. Over 100 schools from 26 states attended to learn how to develop their plans and programs of partnership.
Schools attended these conferences as a team of at least three members of the ATP – ideally, at least one parent, one teacher, and an administrator. In several cases, more than three team members participated. Some district leaders, such as those in Little Rock, AR and Newport News, VA, reserved a room to accommodate several school teams in one location. The Little Rock School District leader for partnerships assembled 20 schools’ ATP representatives at one NNPS web conference this year!
School ATPs learned about ten steps to successful program development, how to form a full and functioning ATP, and the components of the One-Year Action Plan for Partnership. They, then, were assigned the task of writing their own goal-linked plan for family and community involvement for the 09-10 school year.
A Service to Members
Feedback from attendees at this year’s web conferences has been overwhelmingly positive. One participant commented: “What I discovered while listening to the Webcast was that …we have been doing (this) for the past two years. The affirmation made me feel as though we are on the right track!” Another attendee noted: “It was reassuring to hear from other schools and know that we are doing well and that we have some of the same obstacles as others.”
School ATPs and district leaders who were unable to attend these web conferences can visit the NNPS website (www.partnershipschools.org) and log on to an archived, on-line version of the sessions. E-mail Darcy Hutchins (dhutchins@csos.jhu.edu) to receive the activities and handouts to use as you listen to the archived conferences. Read your monthly e-briefs from NNPS and visit the NNPS website to learn about future Web Conferences.
Darcy J. Hutchins
dhutchins@csos.jhu.edu