Action Team for Partnerships Update

Kendall Demonstration Elementary School
ACTION TEAM FOR PARTNERSHIPS UPDATE

June 27, 2007

To Families and Caregivers of KDES Students,

As you may remember, earlier this year we sent home a flyer about the Family-School Action Team for Partnerships and invited interested parents/caregivers to join. For some of you who may not be familiar with the program, here’s a review of that information.

The Clerc Center uses the research based model of Family-School-Community Partnerships created by Dr. Joyce Epstein at Johns Hopkins University. It emphasizes the importance of partnership between the family, school and community. There are 6 types that create a comprehensive program of family-school-community partnerships.
They are:

1. Parenting/Parent Education: assist families with parenting and child-rearing skills, understanding child development and the needs of deaf children, and setting home conditions that support children; assist schools in understanding families.
2. Communicating: communicate with families about school programs and student progress through effective school-to-home and home-to-school communications.
3. Volunteering: improving recruitment, training, responsibilities, and schedules to involve families as volunteers and audiences throughout the school programs.
4. Learning at Home: involve families with their children in learning activities at home, including homework and other curriculum-related activities.
5. Decision-Making: include families as participants in school decisions, parent organizations, committees, and action teams.
6. Collaborating with the Community: identify and involve community resources and services for students, families, and the school.

Children learn and grow at home, school and in the community. Research shows that if overlapping spheres of family, school and community work together, it will support your child’s achievement. Our goal is having these spheres of influence work together to increase your child’s overall success.


Here is an update of progress:

Last March the Family-School-Community Action Team for Partnerships (ATP) was reestablished. We have 12 parents, 2 teachers, and 7 staff members on the team. This group included parents and staff who had initial meetings in the fall, and the recommendations they developed at that time were incorporated into the ATP planning. We met approximately every 2 weeks, using a format based on the Johns Hopkins National Network of Partnership Schools model. The first several meetings were to become acquainted with the partnership model and the 6 types of involvement, reflect on our current practices, and identify which areas need to be strengthened.

We then prioritized and selected 3 of the 6 types of involvement to begin our work: Parenting, Volunteering, and Decision Making.

Then, within those 3 types of involvement, we prioritized which projects to focus on, as follows:

Parenting – Identify what kind of workshops they would like to have throughout the year.
Volunteering – Strengthen the volunteer program
Decision Making – Expand/improve the Kendall After School Program (KASP) and Kendall Athletics/Recreation Program (KARP)

ATP had its last meeting for the school year on June 19th. Sub-groups will continue to work on the areas of focus throughout the summer. We will meet again in early fall.

Please contact us if you have any questions or would like to know more information about the Family-School-Community Action Team for Partnerships. You will be hearing more about the progress of our work in the fall and throughout the year.

Have a GREAT summer with your child!

Marilyn Farmer, KDES Principal
Carla Hanyzewski, Manager, Family Involvement National Mission Initiatives
Delia Lozano-Martinez, KHSO President