COMMUNITY/FAMILY INVOLVEMENT

Gear Icon BulletBuilding Trust with Schools and Diverse Families - A publication from Northwest Regional Educational Lab.

Northwest Regional Educational Laboratories, Strengthening Community Networks - The Basis for Sustainable Community Renewal series:
1. Talking Community Dialogue Workbook ( PDF )
This workbook looks at how we can begin dialogues in our own communities by first examining the ways in which we talk to one another. As you learn more about what dialogue is, you are learning how to initiate and participate in dialogues.

2. Building Partnerships Workbook ( PDF )
This workbook is for community organizers and for people who yearn to build strong, active, involved communities. It talks about how you can begin to conceptualize networks and the practices that will help bring them about.

3. Mapping Community Assets Workbook ( PDF )
This workbook asks us to sit down and think about who and where we are as a first step in getting to where we want to go. It reveals and explores community resources and assets and how to access them.

Partnerships by Design: Cultivating Effective and Meaningful School-Family-Community Partnerships ( PDF )

Working through this manual together, representatives of the school community will:
  • Identify characteristics that are most important for youth to be successful in their community
  • Consider ways to determine that students are developing these characteristics
  • Identify resources and assts in the community that will help youth develop the desired characteristics
  • Plan and implement a project to promote the characteristics, then evaluate the effectiveness of the project, and communicate findings to the public
Partners by Design also includes "Ideas for Action" - hints, tips, and practical suggestions for putting your plans into action.

Getting Ready to Pay for College: What Students and Their Parents Know About the Cost of College Tuition and What They are Doing to Find Out( PDF )

This report uses data from the Parent and Youth Surveys of the 1999 National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES: 1999) to investigate how much college bound 6th- through 12th-grade students know about the cost of attending college, and the relationships between their knowledge of college costs and how they go about preparing for college. This Statistical Analysis Report has two major finding:

1. The vast majority of students plan to go to college, and parents expect them to enroll

  Expecting College Enrollment
Students Parents
Grades 6-8 95% 96.7%
Grades 9-10 91.5% 94.3%
Grades 11-12 93.7% 96.1
Hispanic students 90.1% 94%
Black students 93.9% 95.9%
White students 94% 96%

2. For four-year public universities, students were overpricing tuition by 75% and parents by almost 100%. For two-year public schools, the inflation was more pronounced with students at 200% over the actual costs and parents' estimates at 140%.
Additional Links

PTA's National Standards for Family-School Partnerships - are guidelines for leaders of institutions with programs serving parents and families.

National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE) - is a coalition of major education, community, public service, and advocacy organizations working to create meaningful family-school partnerships in every school in America.

The Center for Parent Leadership - is a Kentucky-based consulting effort that bases its work on current research related to parent engagement. A great resource for educators looking to enhance parent involvement at all levels of K-12, CPL has an excellent library of publications, many of which are downloadable for free.