Spring, 2002, No. 12 National Network of Partnership Schools
Shine a Spotlight on Good Partnership Practices
Recently, a district leader asked “How do I keep my schools’ Action Teams for Partnerships (ATPs) motivated?” One way to inspire ATPs is to encourage widespread sharing of their successful partnership practices. Recognition for a job well done motivates ATP members to keep working together to help students and families. Sharing promising partnership practices also prevents each ATP from “reinventing the wheel.”
Districts Collect Best Practices
For the past several years, leaders in Naperville Community Unit School District 203 in Illinois have helped schools share successful practices within the district and with the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS). The district’s Core Leadership Team developed a simple one-page questionnaire to guide schools’ reporting of their best practices. The completed questionnaires were compiled and distributed to all schools for additional ideas to choose for their next One-Year Action Plans.
Buffalo City School District in New York and Winnipeg School Division No. 1 in Canada also produce annual collections of their schools’ best partnership practices to share within the district and with the National Network. NNPS selected several of the most promising practices from Naperville’s, Buffalo’s, and Winnipeg’s 2001 collections to include in Promising Partnership Practices 2001, and to post on the Network’s website.
The leadership team in Buffalo honors each school whose practice is selected for the NNPS collection with a framed certificate of congratulations. They also send a “congratulations” card to the person who submitted the best practice. Mary Ann Bobosky, in Naperville, gathers schools’ best practices as part of the District Parent Involvement End-of-Year Celebration. (See “Fuel Your Mind” in Promising Partnership Practices 2001 for more information.)
Create Your District’s Collection of Best Practices for 2002
How can your district collect promising partnership practices to recognize your schools’ good work? NNPS created a two-page questionnaire to ease the reporting of best practices this year. All members received a questionnaire, which also is posted on the website at www.partnershipschools.org. Click on “In the “Spotlight.” (Or, click here for the questionnaire.) You can use the NNPS questionnaire or adapt it for your district. Ask schools to select one best practice that they would like to share. Collect the completed questionnaires via mail or e-mail, or at site visits, cluster meetings, or end-of-year celebrations. Organize the practices by the six types of involvement. Compile, print, and distribute the booklets to all of the schools in the district. Be sure to send a copy to NNPS by May 17 for consideration for the Network’s 2002 collection.
As a district leader, you accomplish several goals by collecting best practices from your schools and sharing them with NNPS. Schools’ ATPs receive recognition for their successes. ATPs gain useful ideas that have a track record in other schools. Your district and its schools contribute ideas for school, family, and community partnership practices nationwide. For more information about district collections of best practices, contact Karen Salinas at 410-516-8818 or ksalinas@csos.jhu.edu
