Front Row: Rosie Thomas, Maria Quezada (Director, PIRC1),
Carol Dickson, Carrie Rose, Bea Fernandez.
Back Row: Fred Balcom, Deb Sigman, (Deputy Supt.), Jeana Preston, Sallie Wilson,
Gloria Guzman-Walker, Jose Ortega, Mariaelena Huizar, Geni Boyer (Director, PIRC2),
Marcela Parra, Marin Trujillo, Colleen You, Gordon Jackson, Robert Furgher, Jennifer Rousseve.
State-Level Leadership for Partnerships: State Action Team for Partnerships
In order to model partnership approaches that the California State Educational Agency (SEA) would like districts and schools to implement, the SEA piloted its own State Action Team for Partnerships this year. Drawing from ideas and information at an NNPS Leadership Development Conference in Baltimore, SEA representatives set a goal for the state leadership team to write a State Leadership Action Plan for Partnerships. The SEA assumed that, in some ways, a State ATP would be analogous to district leadership teams and to school-based Action Teams for Partnerships (ATPs), and that a written plan would help the state organize and sustain effective leadership on partnerships. The team and written plan should help the state guide districts and schools in connecting family and community involvement to the goals in their school improvement plans (called Single School Plan for Student Achievement) and to meet NCBL requirements for family involvement.
Members of the State ATP included representatives of California organizations that work on school, family, and community partnership program development including the State PTA, two federally-funded Parental Information and Resource Centers (PIRCs), Regional Equity Assistance Center, San Diego State University’s Research Foundation, California Alliance for School, Family, and Community Partnerships, various non-profit organizations, and selected district leaders in various regions of the state. Each organization had its own interests, but all shared the view that it is important to increase and improve district and school partnership programs. Membership of the State ATP will be expanded next year to incorporate other organizations and various views of partnership program development.
Encourage Districts and Schools to Improve Their Partnership Programs: Regional Partnerships Network
The state’s Leadership Action Plan for Partnerships drafted by the California State ATP (see above) sets a broad goal to mobilize the development, improvement, and sustainability of research-based programs of school, family, and community partnerships at the state, regional, and local levels. In the 08-09 school year, CDE and the State ATP developed an infrastructure to connect leaders at all policy levels to strengthening their own partnership programs through regional partnership networks. Regional Partnership Networks will be aligned with the eleven educational services regions to facilitate and support programs in the districts and schools in each region.
Within the huge state of California, a regional approach should build connections of schools, parents, business partners, faith-based groups, and other community organizations within districts that could be shared within regions. District superintendents have been invited to identify a Parent/Family Involvement contact person for their Regional Partnerships Network. The structures will be rolled out in the next school year and progress will be monitored. The Regional Partnership Networks will help districts and schools strengthen their programs of school, family, and community partnerships to help students meet achievement goals and to close gaps in achievement scores and in graduation rates that presently separate diverse groups of students in the state.
See the history of the California State Department of Education’s Partnership State Awards and examples of Promising Partnership Practices on the website, www.partnershipschools.org in the section Success Stories. Visit the state at: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ and click on Learning Support and the links to Parent/Family/Community.