National Network of Partnership Schools
Johns Hopkins university
partnership award
winners – 2004
WEBSITE SUMMARIES
2004 Partnership DISTRICT AWARD
with Special REcognition
LOCAL District
B (Now, Local District 2)
Los
Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), CA
Charlotte Castagnola, Facilitator;
Sue Shannon, Local Superintendent
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| Row: Beatriz Gutierrez, Charlotte, Castagnola (NNPS Key Contact), and Ana Aranda. Row 2: Monica Carazo, Susana Martinez, Sue Shannon (Superintendent), Marianela Sardelich, Marvin Silver, and Laura Gonzalez. |
Local District B (now, Local
District 2) in LAUSD serves students and families with diverse cultural and
linguistic backgrounds. The district is
a five-year NNPS Partnership District Award winner. With the support of the Local Superintendent, the leaders for
partnerships have continually improved their program by “scaling up” the number
of schools that organize comprehensive partnership programs and by improving the
quality of activities to involve more families in increasing student success.
This district has a well-organized
approach to help schools improve their partnership programs. Parent Community Facilitators assist sets of
schools. They guide Action Teams for
Partnerships with their plans, activities, and end-of-year evaluations, and conduct
monthly meetings with groups of team co-chairs to share ideas, learn new
strategies, and discuss challenges.
Parent Center Directors conduct workshops for parents on literacy, math,
technology, values education, and preparing kindergarten children for
school. The district leaders for family
involvement communicate with a monthly newsletter, link with Title I and
Bilingual Program Coordinators, and meet with Facilitators, Action Team
co-chairs, and principals to guide progress and to resolve challenges.
Local District Superintendent,
Sue Shannon, noted: “The structure . . .
to support partnership efforts is ideal for accomplishing my overriding goal of
developing programs for parents that are parallel to our efforts for students,
teachers, and administrators. Over the
past four years our schools have made significant gains in the California
Academic Performance Index scores, which measure achievement in reading and math. It is not coincidental that in the same four
years, the district has focused parental involvement on literacy and
mathematics.” The district is working
to improve standards-based math programs in all classrooms. The leaders for partnerships developed
information for parents on Family Math, state math standards, and how to use computers,
technology, and the Internet at home to support children on the new approaches
to math.
In 2004, the district conducted
Parent Center Walks to evaluate family
involvement programs at each school. The
daylong observations and conversations with the principal, assistant principal,
action team cochairs, team members, teachers, staff, and parents enabled the
leaders for partnerships to assess the strength of teamwork, quality of partnership
activities, and outreach to parents with information about the school’s instructional
program and how to be involved in their children’s education. Twenty-five to forty people were interviewed
at each school. The results indicated that
the most striking difference between strong and weak programs was the quality
of work of the Action Team for Partnerships, ranging from very high at Arminta
Elementary (an NNPS Partnership School Award winner in 2003) to low in some
schools that were avoiding action. The
intensive evaluation resulted in plans to improve teamwork in 2004-05.
Next year, the leaders aim
to continue strengthening family and community involvement in math, science,
writing, and with English language learners so that more parents can support
students in reaching school goals. As a
result of LAUSD’s reorganization, the district now includes more schools. The leaders of Local District 2 plan to work
with Families in Schools (see 2004
Partnership Organization Awards) and NNPS to assist more schools on partnerships.
ABOUT NNPS: What Local District B’s Leaders Say to Other
Districts . . .
We were fortunate to have discovered NNPS at the very beginning of our
journey (in 1997) and it has guided our work ever since. I know that every time I either “lose heart”
or think “we have it made,” I am prodded gently by NNPS, and we are off and
running again to further improve our programs.
This year I was contacted by several school districts about our work and
my #1 piece of advice is: join the Network.
The work is too overwhelming to do alone and it is not necessary to try
to do so – there are some wonderful, experienced professionals just a phone
call or e-mail away!
Also see Local District B’s
history of Partnership District Awards from 2000 to 2003 and examples of Promising
Partnership Programs on the website, www.partnershipschools.org, in
the section In the Spotlight. Also,
visit www.lausd.k12.ca.us and click
on Local District 2 and Parents.