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| Row 1: Bea Fernandez, Jeana Preston (NNPS Key Contact), John Wedemeyer (Executive Director), and Pat Vacio. Row 2: Renee Crawford, Yee Khun, Beth Sondak, Christine Kaufman-Martinez, Ellen Yaffa, and Tony Herrera, Not Pictured: Maria Moore-Flagg, and Barbara Withrow. |
The California PARENT Center (CPC) works with the California Department of Education's Title I Policy and Partnership Office to provide technical assistance to schools, districts, and county offices of education on school, family, and community partnerships. CPC, in the June Burnett Institute, includes advisors from San Diego State University, California State PTA, California Association of Compensatory Education, California Comprehensive Assistance Center, and other organizations. CPC meets regularly with its many partners. The organization has made important advances in outreach, professional development, and state leadership on partnerships. (Also see the California State Department of Education, a 2005 Partnership State Award winner.)
In 2004-05, CPC and its partners disseminated information on CPC services statewide and conducted at least eleven two-day regional Leadership Development Conferences - Using Parent Involvement to Increase Student Success and Academic Achievement, based largely and collaboratively on NNPS materials and approaches. In so doing, CPC has provided professional development and assistance to over 1500 school, district, and county administrators, teachers, support staff, and parent leaders at its training activities. At the training workshops, attendees learn about research on partnerships, how to develop partnership programs linked to the goals for improvement in California schools' Single School Plan for Student Achievement, and how to write annual One-Year Action Plans for family and community involvement that will contribute to student success.
CPC leaders present information at various conferences, such as one in 2005 for state and federal program officers, where 300 attended CPC's two-day training and 1200 others obtained information about CPC and partnership programs. CPC aims to conduct at least one two-day conference per month in the state's eleven education regions.
Working with colleagues at San Diego State University, CPC developed a Parent Involvement Liaison Certificate Program. This training prepares Parent Liaisons for leadership on partnerships, orients students to the framework of six types of involvement, and shows them how to guide schools to plan partnerships linked to their own schools' Single School Plan for Student Achievement.
To evaluate its work, CPC asks attendees to assess every training activity. The staff reviews the evaluations and makes changes and adjustments to its presentations and materials. CPC plans to use NNPS assessments and other tools to follow the progress of the schools and districts that receive CPC training to learn how the training affects the development of their partnership programs.
As CPC has increased its leadership, it has addressed many challenges including how to support its staff and programs as a funded organization. It has made excellent progress and will continue to improve its business plan, viability, outreach, and influence.
For more information, visit the California PARENT Center at http://parent.sdsu.edu.