''Citizen Work'' Changes Anoka-HennepinAnoka-Hennepin Independent School District Anoka, Minnesota The Parent Involvement Program of Minnesota's School District #11, Anoka-Hennepin, began in 1992. The program, built on Epstein's framework of six types of involvement, strives to develop comprehensive programs of school, family, and community partnerships at the local and district levels. From our program's inception, the concept of "citizen work" as taught by The Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota has provided strong philosophy and structure for Type 5-Decision Making. More... Linda Rodgers, Coordinator (763) 506-1282 lindarodgers@anoka.k12.mn.us Type | District | District |
Collaborating Across CulturesGrand Blanc City Schools Grand Blanc, Michigan Collaborating with the Perry Center community is one of the things that upper grade students at City School do best! The students learn in one of two elementary classrooms in a building that houses fourteen different programs. This unique setting allows the students to experience a variety of ages and activities throughout the school year. These third, fourth, and fifth grade students have worked with the three all-day kindergarten classes, assisted with youngsters on the loop buses, helped to create a true Children's Garden, and met with the adult English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. These collaborations have given the children a distinct view that learning is life-long and occurs at all ages and stages of development. More... Kay Reed, Director (810) 591-6088 Type | Elementary Grades | District |
Community Forum Brings Stakeholders TogetherBaltimore City Public Schools, Southern Area Baltimore, Maryland Beginning in March 1999, the Southern Area implemented the Community Forum. We invited business partners, parents, community members, school officials, district leaders, school staff, administrators, students, and the School Board of Commissioners. For some participants, the Community Forum was an opportunity to meet their child's teacher or principal. For others it was an opportunity to chat with one of the School Board of Commissioners. For yet another, it was an opportunity to meet other parents who lived in the neighborhood. More... Anjali Patel, Area Facilitator (410) 545-0915 Type | District | District |
Family Involvement NotebooksMinneapolis Public Schools Minneapolis, Minnesota As Minneapolis Public Schools worked to increase both the level and quality of family involvement in the education of students, many phone calls came to the Office of Family Involvement and Title I from schools seeking additional information and help. As a result, the two offices jointly developed the Family Involvement Notebook to serve as a resource in the school building for sites seeking to form more effective partnerships with their families. More... Majorie Kostouros, Family Involvement Specialist (612) 668-3959 Type | District | District |
Health and Safety Shared Decision Making TeamRush-Henrietta Central School District Rush-Henrietta, New York In spring 1997, Rush-Henrietta Central School District began its Health and Safety Shared Decision Making Team. The team focused on having parents, district staff, and community members work together to ensure the health and safety of the district's youth at school and on the way to and from school. More... Kay Lyons, Director of Family Services and Partnership Facilitator (716) 359-7912 Type | District | District |
Overview on Improving PartnershipsConnecticut State Department of Education Hartford, Connecticut Despite disseminating information on school, family, and community partnerships through newsletters, presentations at conferences and other meetings, and a lending library for special education and family support resources, generating interest in our two-day Action Team training sessions is an ongoing challenge. Development of an Overview on Improving School-Family-Community Partnerships has helped meet this challenge. This half-day workshop is designed to provide information on the six types of involvement as a foundation for ideas about how to build a school, family, and community partnership program. We invite interested parties in our database, as well as all Connecticut public schools, including magnet schools, charter schools, and vocational-technical schools. The workshop is open to anyone with an interest-teachers, school staff, family members, or community agency employees. More... Wendy Harwin, Project Coordinator (860) 566-7856 Type | State | State |
Parent Library on WheelsFrancis Polytechnic/ North Hollywood Cluster Sun Valley, California One of our goals during the last three years has been to improve student achievement in reading. A major focus of our work with parents supports this goal. More... Charlotte Castagnola, Facilitator (818) 767-2685 Type | District | District |
Parent UniversityNaperville Community Unit District 203 Naperville, Illinois The district's Student Assistance Program has coordinated Parent University for six years. In the third year, we partnered with a neighboring school district and a community agency. The following year, other community agencies joined. Parent University 2000 resulted from a partnership between Naperville District 203, Indian Prairie District 204, NCO Youth and Family Services, Breaking Free, Inc., and the Naperville Police Department. The districts and community agencies shared tasks of securing workshop presenters, registration, publicity, workshop folders, ordering food, scheduling facilities, and other logistical issues. Linden Oaks Hospital at Edward will provide marketing services for Parent University 2001. More... Sandy Stelmach, Student Assistance Program Coordinator (630) 420-6446 Type | District | District |
Parents Support Learning at HomeKorea District , Korea The Site Based Self Evaluation study of School Home Community Partnership indicated that the Korea District needed to provide parents with specific opportunities to become directly involved in their child's learning. To accomplish this goal, the district conducted training for each School Improvement Team in how to identify an instructional focus based on a data driven need and then incorporate a means whereby every parent could provide support for that instructional focus at home. Each school would conduct pre- and post- surveys to determine the extent of parent involvement throughout the year. More... Maria Myers, Facilitator (227) 918-4027 Type | District | District |
Partnering with the United Way of ConnecticutConnecticut State Department of Education Hartford, Connecticut The United Way of Connecticut and the Connecticut State Department of Education recently signed an agreement to work together to build linkages between schools, families, and their communities. More... Wendy Harwin, Project Coordinator (860) 566-7856 Type | State | State |
Passport 2000Northwest Local Schools and Colerain High School Cincinnati, Ohio In our district, we have a committee that helps each of the 14 school buildings with their Family Involvement committees. A representative or two from every school serves on the district committee. For the 1998-1999 school year the district committee wanted to conduct a districtwide event, but decided against it because of the construction at every school building. We decided on an event for the 1999-2000 school year that would encourage the community to visit all schools in the district to see the building improvements that their tax dollars supported. More... Rose Marie Fromme, Family Involvement Committee Member (513) 385-6424 Type | High School | District |
''R and R'' if NeededGrand Blanc Community Schools Grand Blanc, Michigan When our families tried to obtain information regarding resources available to them, they often did not know what those resources were or how to access them. On many occasions, families obtained outdated and inaccurate information. We wanted to improve our ability to support families by having current, accurate, and relevant resource information for referrals. As a result, we created our own Resource and Referral Booklet. More... Martha Weiss, Facilitator (810) 629-8275 Type | District | District |
Spring Partnership RallyOhio Department of Education Columbus, Ohio Work on school, family, and community partnerships at the state level is conducted by an interagency team from Ohio Department of Education (especially Title I and Special Education), PTA, Ohio's Parent Information and Resource Center (OhioPIRC), and Ohio Family and Children First, the governor's family support initiative. One strong example of the work of this leadership team is the March 1998 Spring Partnership Rally. More... Connie Spencer Ackerman, Office of Partnership and Public Engagement (614) 752-5072 Type | State | State |
Study CirclesBaltimore City Public Schools, Southern Area Baltimore, Maryland This year the Southern Area of Baltimore City Public Schools and the Baltimore Education Network (BEN) organized Cross City High School Study Circles. The study circle process is a "grass roots" concept that was first used in Connecticut. A study circle is a small group of ten-to-fifteen people who meet regularly for a period of time to address a major public issue in a democratic and collaborative way. More... Anjali Patel, Area Facilitator (410) 545-0915 Type | High School | District |
The Illinois StoryIllinois State Board of Education Chicago, Illinois In the summer of 1998, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) offered training to representatives of several schools in East Central Illinois as the first big step towards getting word of the six-type framework out to the education community of the state. This training preceded a year-long pilot project designed to test an Illinois version of School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action by Epstein, J.L., et. al. The pilot project tested the training methodology and the forms compiled and developed by Laura Bercovitz of the Adult Learning Resource Center (ALRC) under a special grant from ISBE. More... Gary Greene, Principal Consultant (312) 814-3606 Type | State | State |
Video to Home Project with Kid-CouriersAnoka-Hennepin Independent School District Anoka, Minnesota In the fall of 1998, the Anoka-Hennepin Independent School District held a well-kept secret. Tucked away in their Staff Development Center, the Parent Involvement Resource Center (PIRC) had collected approximately 1000 resource materials on parenting topics for district parents and staff to borrow. With a new cataloging system and display space, it was time to increase awareness of PIRC. In addition, several district schools had new on-site Parent Resource Centers (PRC), which needed advertising. More... Sue Archbold, Volunteer Services Supervisor/Parent Involvement (763) 506-1585 Type | District | District |