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| Row 1: Dr. Anne Just, Camille Maben, Susan Lange, Lilia Sanchez, Veronica Aguila, Carol Dickson, (NNPS Key Contact). Row 2: Dr. William Ellerbee, Geno Flores, Jack O'Connell (State Superintendent), Sue Stickel, Sheila Bruton, Wayne Shimizu, Leroy Hamm, and Caroline Roberts. |
The California Department of Education (CDE) is a two-time Partnership State Award winner. Historically, California was the first state to enact a policy specifying that all schools should apply the six types of family and community involvement in programs that focused on students' academic success. For the past two years, CDE has worked with many state offices and regional organizations to help more districts and schools enact the policy and strengthen their partnership programs.
The Title I Policy and Partnerships (TIPP) Office of the School and District Accountability Division of the Assessment and Accountability Branch has responsibility for improving partnership programs statewide. With the support of the State Superintendent and other leaders, TIPP works with colleagues in other units, divisions, and branches of CDE including accountability, curriculum and instruction, school improvement, NCLB, migrant education, Even Start, English learners, health, and other offices. These communications have strengthened interdepartmental connections, knowledge, and actions for family and community involvement.
The Family Area Network (FAN), an active set of advisors on actions for school, family, and community partnerships, meets six times a year. It includes representatives from all regions of the state, including urban and rural districts, adult education, early childhood education, higher education, and Parent Information Resource Centers (PIRCs). In 2005, FAN's major task was to develop standards for programs of family and community involvement that showed how the six types of involvement could be used in practice. When faced with the challenge of finding time to meet, the group solved the problem with three video-conferences that helped FAN draft, discuss, and edit its Standards/Guide to Quality: School, Family, and Community Partnerships. FAN's video conferences opened a new technology for providing other training and services on partnerships.
Over the past year, collaborative efforts with the California Parent Center (CPC) and other partners resulted in 11 regional training workshops to assist school and district leaders in understanding, planning, and implementing more effective and comprehensive programs of school, family, and community partnerships. These efforts are "growing" a California Network of Partnership Schools (CNPS) linked to NNPS. (See the California PARENT Center, a 2005 Partnership Organization Award winner.)
Taking national leadership, CDE leaders worked with the U.S. Department of Education to conduct conference calls with State Title I Directors from across the country to share information on state leadership for partnerships and resources available. The CDE leader for partnerships made several presentations to conferences of key groups (e.g., California Association for Administrators of State and Federal Education Programs and the Bureau of Indian Affairs National Parent Involvement Training).
Looking forward to the 2006 school year, CDE plans to continue offering two-day workshops to schools and districts, add a one-day follow up workshop to extend skills of experienced partners, give attention to faith-based collaborations and military communities, and help more schools and districts emphasize the connections of family and community involvement with student achievement.
See the summary of CDE's Partnership State Awards in 2004 on the website, www.partnershipschools.org in the section In the Spotlight. To learn more about CDE's work on partnerships, visit www.cde.ca.gov/ls/pf/pf/.