Charlotte Castagnola, Facilitator, Parent Activities; Judy I. Burton, Local Superintendent
Row 1: Beatrice Gutierrez, Laura Gonzalez, Sandra Ramirez, and Delia Lara. Row 2: Ana Aranda, Charlotte Castagnola (NNPS Key Contact), Rhonda Bradley, Rebeca Rodriguez, and Judy Burton (Superintendent).
Local District B, one of eleven districts in LAUSD, is recognized in 2002 for continuing to strengthen and improve district-level and school-level leadership and programs of school, family, and community partnerships. The district also won a Partnership District Award in 2000 and 2001, and has improved its program every year, despite changes in leadership and district reorganization. The partnership director and six facilitators for elementary, middle, and high schools meet weekly with the Superintendent to report progress and plan their work on partnerships.
The coordinator, superintendent, and other colleagues have attended several NNPS conferences in Baltimore. They gather ideas and work together to plan their next steps for improving their programs. The district leaders are assisted by Families In Schools (see Partnership Organization Awards, below), and District B works on some partnership activities with other partners, including District F (see Partnership District Award for District F in LAUSD, below) and Occidental College. For example, these colleagues conducted a conference for principals, action teams, coordinators, team members, and others to guide their work and to enable them share best practices. District B's leaders guide their schools to conduct Mother/Daughter College Preparation, Read with Me/Lea Conmigo, parent curriculum project, parent centers, parent academies, secondary school partnership projects, TIPS interactive homework, and more.
Schools in District B are guided to form action teams and write and implement action plans for partnerships that address four goals. Three common goals across all schools are to involve families and communities in ways that (1) create a welcoming environment, (2) help students improve literacy skills, and (3) help students improve math skills. Each school also selects a unique fourth goal for family and community involvement (e.g., to help students improve attendance, behavior, or graduation rates). The school teams receive technical assistance on conducting effective partnership practices at their schools and at regularly scheduled district-level meetings. Schools also are guided to evaluate their work and improve their partnership programs each year.
To evaluate its own work, District B's leaders conducted in-depth interviews with eight Action Teams for Partnerships to learn what kind of assistance on partnerships they need. These interviews revealed the need for more training, more on-site facilitation at monthly team meetings, and more ways to celebrate and share good work. District B's leaders also identified two challenges to address next year: to improve partnership programs in secondary schools and to "scale up" the number of schools in the district that have well designed and on-going partnership programs.
District B's leader explained: "NNPS has (helped me) change my work.. I have become an incredibly successful facilitator of some truly awesome partnership programs. The Network's guidelines work! It is amazing how something that seems so simple and makes so much sense can make an enormous difference. The remarkable staff is knowledgeable, generous, helpful and encouraging, and unfailingly friendly."
District B's Directors of Operations wrote: "We have been witness to the remarkable benefits of District B's program of school, family, and community partnerships . . . More parents attend school events. Teachers have (more) parent support, and the achievement level at our schools continues to increase. We credit the ability of our entire school community to work together for a common goal for our schools' success."
Also see Local District B's history of Partnership District Awards in 2000 and 2001 and examples of Promising Partnership Programs on the website, www.partnershipschools.org, in the section Success In the Spotlight.