Suzanne Katusin, Family Involvement Coordinator; Diane Talarico, Superintendent
Row 1: Darleen Moss, and Nadine McIlwain. Row 2: James Irvin, Dianne Talarico (Superintendent), Suzanne Katusin (NNPS Key Contact), Deidre K. Stokes-Davis, Patricia Milam, Alice Sloneker, and Cindy Mayle.
Canton City Schools joined the National Network of Partnership Schools in 1998. The district has been improving its leadership on partnerships and "scaling up" school programs of partnership ever since. A new superintendent in 2001 continued to support and strengthen the district's program. Now, all 25 elementary, middle, high schools, and early childhood center have action teams to develop and sustain their programs of family and community involvement linked to school improvement goals. In addition, representatives from each school meet monthly as a district-level leadership team to plan and share ideas on partnerships.
District and school leaders have attended professional development conferences conducted by NNPS. The leaders, in turn, provide staff development on partnerships to all new district employees each year. They produced a video on the district's work on partnerships, which is broadcasted to call schools on the district's TV station. District leaders provide training on the framework of six types of involvement, special activities such as First Day Celebrations, math and literacy nights, and interactive homework. Family and community reading volunteers work with children in schools to contribute to the Ohio Reads program; TIPS interactive homework helps parents monitor homework and talk to their children about their schoolwork. Other activities include conference days, college-career nights, book fairs, and more. Title I funds help support these activities in each school.
One interesting activity is to assist students and families to make successful transitions from elementary to middle school. In a pilot project, middle school students visited the elementary school to talk with students. Fifth graders' parents were invited to the middle school to obtain information in preparation for the transition. The initial events were successful and will be continued, extended, and shared with other schools.
Canton's leaders are serious about evaluating partnership programs. They help their schools use the Networks' end-of-year assessments and UPDATE surveys to reflect on their work and progress and to plan the next year's program. Schools use the data to set annual goals to improve family and community involvement partnerships for all six types of involvement. One of the next challenges the district will address is how to measure the effects of school, family, and community partnerships on specific aspects of student achievement and student success.
The district leaders in Canton City Schools gain knowledge, develop districtwide activities, provide on-going professional development to school teams, and reward the good work that schools conduct on partnerships. These simple, but essential, steps are helping all schools make progress on partnerships for student success.
Canton's leaders wrote: "One of our most convincing reasons for joining the Network and building partnership programs in all schools is that our children improved on measures of achievement as we improved our partnership programs. Our district moved up this year from a state of "Academic Emergency" to "Academic Watch." All of our schools have heard the message: Increasing family involvement to reach school goals will increase student achievement. The National Network of Partnership Schools has provided the tools to increase family involvement in our schools, and we will continue [to improve our programs in each school so that all our children will learn."
Also see Canton City's examples of Promising Partnership Programs on the website, www.partnershipschools.org, in the section Success In the Spotlight.