Ruth M. Yoon, Executive Director
Lucille Ignacio, Stan Pham, Ruth Yoon (NNPS Key Contact), Kelsey Tanaka, Omar Ariza, Mark Sullano, and Mary Louise Silva. Not Pictured: Denise Quiqley.
Families In Schools (FIS) is a technical assistance provider, coach, and facilitator to help district leaders and school teams develop programs of school, family, and community partnerships. The organization has built a strong reputation for high-quality assistance. FIS is well connected in California to state, regional, and local education leaders. In 2001, FIS was recognized with a Partnership Organization Award for its work with Local District B in LAUSD. This year, the award recognizes on-going and expanded activities with Local Districts B and F and other leadership actions.
The Families In Schools staff meets bimonthly with district-level program facilitators for District B and F to help them help their schools create and maintain effective action teams for partnerships and goal-oriented partnership programs. FIS and its partners also write collaborative grants to fund components of their partnership programs.
FIS has worked with district and school leaders to develop, implement, and "scale up" the application of partnership practices such as Mother/Daughter College Preparation, Parent Academies, Character Education, and Read With Me/Lea Conmigo - now used by Action Teams for Partnerships in schools in Districts B and F as activities in their growing programs of school, family, and community partnerships, and in other schools in Los Angeles. (See FIS website - www.familiesinschools.org.)
FIS has been an active member of the National Network of Partnership Schools, attends NNPS leadership conferences, uses NNPS materials, and, then, tailors tools and approaches to fit the needs of districts and schools in Los Angeles. FIS is showing how an organization with a clear mission, talented staff, and attention to evaluation can assist district leaders and their schools to improve partnership programs over time.
The organization's attention to evaluation has been notable. Working with outside evaluators, FIS conducted surveys, interviews, focus groups, and site visits to measure program implementation, participants, and results of partnership activities. A four-year longitudinal study in LAUSD monitored teachers and parent-child pairs from grades 2 to 5 in schools developing partnership programs and in matching schools. The study reported that more teachers in schools working on partnerships were conducting parental involvement practices; more parents were communicating with the schools and supporting their children's reading and homework at home; and third grade students in those schools outperformed comparison students in reading and language arts on standardized tests. In one district, similar results were noted for students' standardized math test scores. Because parental involvement is typically stronger in the younger grades, these findings and similar results from NNPS studies suggest that teachers and parents in the older grades need more help to develop and sustain communications and interactions with families that will to benefit student achievement.
Families In Schools leaders wrote: "Joining NNPS and attending the training in Baltimore is the most important action you can take to strengthen your parent involvement and partnership (programs). The Network makes you feel like you are part of a national movement to improve the achievement of children, rather than one person alone trying to do it all. . . . We talked with one district superintendent at the conference who reported: NNPS is an evidence-based model of how families, schools, and communities can partner to improve education. The model can be easily explained to families, school staffs, and community partners."
Also see Families In Schools' history of Partnership District Awards in 2001 and examples of Promising Partnership Programs on the website, www.partnershipschools.org, in the section Success Stories In the Spotlight.