Row 1: Jane Wernette, Terri Stevens, Karen Currier, and Sandy Shamburek. Row 2: Julie Lichter, Gail Zeeb, Erica Eysturlid, Mike VanHarlingen, Kitty Murphy, Patti McIntire, Dr. Alan Leis (Superintendent), Lenore Johnson, Paul Schmidt, Nina Menis (NNPS Key Contact), Karen Noble, Sheila Sarovich, and Debbie Shipley.
Continuing its district-wide leadership on partnerships, Naperville District 203 earned its seventh NNPS Partnership District Award. Each year, the district and its advisory Core Team works to help all 21 elementary, middle, and high schools improve their partnership programs. Each year, the district leaders revise and strengthen their organization and activities. (Also see the fall 2006 issue of Type 2, NNPS’s newsletter, for an interview with Nina Menis, part of NNPS’s 10th Anniversary celebration of “charter” districts that have worked with NNPS from the start.)
In Naperville, a Core Team advises the district leader for partnerships. A principal and parent are co-chairs of the advisory body, along with other district leaders, a principal, staff, and parent from each level of schooling; a representative from the business community; an expert on social- and emotional learning; and an executive of the Home & School Association (Naperville’s PTA). The Core Team shares responsibilities with the director for partnerships for visiting with the co-chairs of each School-Family-Community Partnership (SFCP) team, and with other organizations. To keep all schools on the same path, the Core Team sponsors a bimonthly newsletter, periodic e-mail, and a website.
In 2006, the district selected a theme: “Joining Hands for Successful Partnerships” to encourage all stakeholders to focus on helping students succeed in school at high levels. The district also continued and improved activities, including a Knowledge Bank of partnership activities conducted throughout the district, an annual local collection of Promising Practices, and an End-of-Year Celebration. Interesting new activities included Parent Networking Sessions; a collaborative Parent University with a nearby district; a Kick-Off fall orientation on partnerships for principals, parents co-chairs, Home and School presidents, and action team members; and fall and winter Parent Leadership Training sessions. The Kick Off activity brought together action team members with Home and School leaders to define their specific tasks, plan collaborative activities, and discuss their common interests.
The district leader is particularly pleased with a workshop and PowerPoint presentation on how to strengthen business partner in all schools, and one on how to write grant applications for funds for partnerships and school improvement. Tom Paulsen, Associate Superintendent for Operations, explained that as a result of the district’s emphasis on parent and community involvement and a series of workshops on district assessments of students, parents now sit side-by-side with staff at “data retreats” to discuss achievement test results, actions for improvement, and indicators of students’ social and emotional behaviors. He sees that paents and staff are conducting “real” partnerships for school improvement.
Naperville has always been clear about the importance of evaluating the quality of its activities and the progress of its programs at the district and school levels. This year, an evaluation that followed workshops for parents on district assessments at each level of schooling are being used to improve the content of the Junior High Assessment Workshop in the future. Every school and the district return UPDATE each year. District leaders are taking advantage of the customized summary of the data from its own schools that NNPS provides.
The NNPS model is the result of years of research. Like Naperville, other districts would benefit from the NNPS Leadership Conferences in Baltimore, the website, handbook, newsletter, and new research papers. …The staff is helpful and professional. Their advice goes beyond the theoretical – it is field tested and practical.
See Naperville’s history of Partnership District Awards from 2000 to 2005 and examples of Promising Partnership Programs on the website, www.partnershipschools.org, in the section Success Stories. Visit the district at http://www.ncusd203.org/!community/SFCP/