Working to involve parents
Deb Hoffman, Franklin Elementary School Principal

Franklin-Randall works diligently to involve parents in a variety of ways. We have four formal groups that meet regularly in the evenings. These groups include the Parent Teacher Organization, Parents of African-American Students Empowerment Group, Latino Parent Empowerment Group, and Hmong Parent Empowerment Group.

All four of these groups meet at Franklin-Randall for about two hours, six times per year. The PTO meets monthly for the same amount of time.

When we communicate with parents, we try to be clear that participating at school is optional and that we understand that family and work can really impede attending daytime or evening events. We want parents to know that simply sending their child/ren to school rested and on-time is helpful.

We are proud that we have such a huge turn-out for parent conferences, classroom volunteer opportunities, and evening events. Parents have really taken responsibility for running most of these meetings themselves, with staff performing support for childcare, logistics, and guidance.

Often, parents request staff to be presenters after they determine the agenda for the meetings. Different parent groups have expressed different needs. For example, one of our groups has discussed health services in the Dane County area while another group has discussed the overrepresentation of a specific group of students in special education. The topics are wide-ranging and geared toward supporting all the parents at our schools.

East High's partnerships are community outreach
David Krause, Assistant Principal

East High School has a long tradition of community outreach. We impress upon our students the need to give back to the community.

Students partner with our broader community in a variety of ways. Our Freshman Congress is currently organizing a clothing drive with the Community Action Coalition. The Senior Congress is organizing a Food Drive for the Second Harvest Food Bank. The Beta Club participates in Meals on Wheels as another community service project. We'll also be working on a holiday toy drive with Starbuck's.

Many students participate in ENJOY (East Neighbors Join Old and Young), a club that connects students to elderly people in the neighborhood through a partnership with the Northeast Side Senior Coalition. ENJOY students visit their elderly friends in their homes and help out with chores.

For almost a decade, East has organized a community dinner. Parents, students and our surrounding neighbors come to the school to share a meal. It's a great event that lets community members interact with parents, students and staff.

At East, students are strongly encouraged to be involved in the community and they have numerous opportunities to do so.

Improving home/school partnerships a priority
Sandy Gunderson, Mendota Elementary School Principal

Home/School Partnerships is one of four major school improvement goals at Mendota Elementary School.

We implement the research of J. L. Epstein, a national expert on school, family, and community partnerships. Every year our teachers evaluate our school's best practices based on Epstein's model of 6 types of parent involvement. They include parenting, communication, volunteering, learning at home, decision making, and collaborating with the community. We analyze our data to ensure that we are including many opportunities for parent partnerships under each of her six categories.

Over the years, most schools have seen declining participation by parents. To change this trend, the Mendota PTO organizational structure was reorganized with a goal of redefining and increasing overall parent involvement. We placed an emphasis on including parents from all cultures and redefined participation in the PTO based on Epstein's model.

This meant that volunteering is defined as anyone who supports school goals and children's learning in any way, at any place, and at any time. Our goal was 100% parent involvement wherein "everyone would do a little so that no one would have to do a lot."

Our new PTO structure established a "room parent" for every classroom. This person assisted the teacher with communication to other parents about school and PTO events. The homeroom parents were organized into k/1, 2/3 and 4/5 cadre structures.

A school calendar of PTO events was created so everyone could see the big picture. Every PTO activity was divided up equally among the 3 cadres. This gave parents an opportunity to sign up for involvement in one cadre and limit the amount of time and energy they needed to contribute to any one activity.

For example, the 2/3 cadre of parents knew that they were responsible for the carnival in March and silent auction in April, plus a few other activities. This structure is working well at our school.

In addition to this formal PTO structure, Mendota has a formal Home/School Community Action Team consisting of Mendota teachers. For ten years they have focused their successful agenda on our school priority of inclusion and honoring of our key stakeholders — our parents.

Empowerment groups are part of Franklin-Randall's efforts to involve parents. Students and parents enjoy a meal here at the Franklin-Randall Parent Empowerment Kick-Off on September 28.