Mary Ann Bobosky, Director of Planning and Community Relations
Row 1: Denise Mitchell, Dean Reschke, Jane Wernette (Co-Chair), Don Weber (Superintendent), Gretchen Zelinski (Co-Chair), Sheila Verkamp, Jack Buller, and Meda Peterson. Row 2: Catherine Redford, Joyce Speer, Phyllis Kimmel, Mark Pasztor, Jackie Romberg, Patti Mau, Pat Larson and Ann Vitek. Not Pictured: Dr. Mary Ann Bobosky (NNPS Key Contact), Karen Currier, Maureen Dvorak, Lenore Johnson, Nina Menis, Bessma Shammas and Ross Truemper.
District 203 in Naperville, IL is recognized for strong and sustained district leadership and assistance to all elementary, middle, and high schools. In addition to guiding the schools in Naperville, district leaders made presentations about school, family, and community partnerships to the Illinois State Board of Education and to other districts in Illinois. Naperville won Partnership District Awards in 2000 and 2001 and has improved its program each year. The district was featured for its partnership program in the August/September 2002 issue of Working Mother magazine.
A district-level Core Team for School/Family/Community Partnerships organizes and monitors leadership for family and community involvement. The Core Team includes educators and parents from each school, school board members, and district leaders of various departments. This group meets quarterly to plan district-level activities that will help all elementary, middle, and high schools form effective school-based partnership programs. Business and community partners work with the core team to sponsor various programs and projects.
District-wide activities include an annual orientation of new team members on all school teams; a Family/Community Partnership newsletter three times a year; celebrations to share good ideas and progress; and a "best practice" booklet to help school teams share their work with each other. Each school is assisted to form an action team for partnerships and to plan activities for the six types of involvement to improve the school program and to increase student success.
Parents take many leadership roles at each school and at the district level. For example, district leaders note that parent leadership and participation on school funding resulted in the passage of a 53-cent tax rate referendum in 2002. This is in contrast to a failing effort in 1994 that did not involve parents.
Naperville's leaders report dramatic increases in support from principals, teachers, and the School Board for programs of school, family, and community partnerships. It still is a challenge, however, to build and sustain trust among teachers, parents, and administrators so that they are able to work well together to plan, implement, and evaluate family and community involvement activities at each school.
One of Naperville's strengths is its annual survey of parents in all 21 schools to collect parents' reactions to school and district programs, partnership activities, and suggestions for future programs and practices. The leaders note that the results of these surveys have become increasingly positive from year to year as partnership programs in all schools have improved.
Naperville's leaders wrote: "The Six Types of Involvement promote communicating with parent, encouraging parents to become decision makers along with school staff, giving parents assistance with parenting, volunteering in school, encouraging parents to work with the community to support schools, and encouraging parents to interact with their children on homework assignments. The NNPS staff is extremely helpful when questions or challenges arise about involving parents. The materials from the National Network are well-written and useful for parents and education staff. The National Network realizes that each school district has its own culture, and is flexible when giving advice on how to structure parent involvement programs."
Also see Naperville'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 Stories In the Spotlight.