April 2007 Announcement
Dear FINE Member,
Here are this month's FINE member updates. Please
feel free to forward this information to your friends and other education colleagues.
New From FINE
This month’s FINE announcement showcases three new resources to help educators
build and strengthen family engagement processes connected to students' academic
learning over the school year, as well as during the summer months ahead.
- New Resources in the Family
Involvement Storybook Corner
New educator resources for building family-school-community connections
to support children's literacy are now available on the Storybook Corner.
These resources -- which include a classroom lesson plan, commentary from
a teacher who used lesson ideas with her class, and a Spanish/English family
literacy handout -- focus on connecting schools and families with public
libraries, engaging Latino families, and preventing the summer literacy
slide. The Storybook Corner uses children’s books with family involvement
themes to engage families in supporting children’s learning and development.
- Tomasito's Mother Comes
to School
Stay tuned later this spring, when HFRP releases its very own bilingual
family involvement storybook, Tomasito's Mother Comes to School/La
Mamá de Tomasito Visita la Escuela. This research-based story
contains information for families and illustrations by children’s book
illustrator Joe Cepeda. It will be available to read, download, and print
out for free at the Family Involvement Storybook Corner.
- Member Insight: Linking Family
Engagement to Learning
Dr. Karen Mapp , former Deputy Superintendent for Family and Community Engagement
in the Boston Public Schools and co-author of Beyond the Bake Sale: The
Essential Guide to Family–School Partnerships, shares her insights
about how teachers, principals, and school district staff can connect their
family engagement work to improving students’ academic achievement. Drawing
on the book’s chapter “Linking to Learning,” Mapp shares her
thoughts on encouraging schools to focus on building trusting relationships
with families, and to use their family engagement work as a key instructional
strategy.
- Related
Resource: Beyond the Bake Sale: The Essential Guide to Family–School
Partnerships
This book by Anne Henderson, Karen Mapp, Vivian Johnson, and Don Davies provides
practical advice and useful tools to help build and maintain strong partnerships
among schools, families, and communities. You can purchase it at the link
above.
Related Resource From HFRP
Policy
- Commission
on the Whole Child
The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development’s (ACSD)
new report, The Learning Compact Redefined: A Call to Action, makes
the case for a “whole-child” and “whole-community” approach
to education. The report also provides real-world examples of collaborative
efforts to support the holistic growth of children and youth.
- Para
Nuestros Niños
Created by The Center for the Education and Study of Diverse Populations
(CESDP) at New Mexico Highlands University, this tool kit is based on the
National PTA’s standards for parent and community involvement programs
and is designed to support the development of school, family and community
partnerships. The tool kit is divided into three sections: teacher, family,
and professional development tools.
Articles & Reports
- Our
Children
The newest edition of the National PTA's magazine Our Children
focuses on community schools. Four articles describe the history of community
schools, the approach and practices that make them unique, and the leadership
that it takes to run them successfully.
- The
Costs and Benefits of an Excellent Education for All of America’s Children
This study by Henry Levin, Clive Belfield, Peter Muennig, and Cecilia Rouse
investigates the public costs and benefits of five interventions that raise
high school graduation rates, three of which include programs and strategies
to strengthen family involvement.
Upcoming Events
- Family
Support Conference
The 14th Annual Family Support Conference will be held in Pittsburgh,
Pennyslvania, on May 17, 2007. The conference will focus on the four “R’s”
of school readiness: ready families, ready communities, ready schools, and
ready services.
- National
Center for Education Statistics Training and Technical Assistance
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is offering a series
of workshops on using national data sets for education research. A number
of family involvement studies have drawn conclusions based on the NCES data
sets.
- Children’s
Day/Book Day
April 30 is El día de los niños/El día de
los libros (Children’s Day/Book Day), an annual celebration of
children, families, and reading that emphasizes the importance of advocating
literacy for children of all linguistic and cultural backgrounds. To learn
more about Día and to find out about its community family literacy
events around the country go to the link above.
- Writing
Individualized Education
The Center for Innovations in Education (CISE) at the University of Missouri
is offering a 5-week online interactive course for educators, families, and
university faculty and students who want to develop skills in writing measurable
goals for Individualized Education Programs as required by the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1997 & 2004. The course begins
June 11, 2007. Enrollment is limited.
Contact Us
If you experience a problem reading this newsletter or have questions and
comments concerning our work, we would love to hear from you. Please send an
email to fine@gse.harvard.edu.
Enjoy!
The FINE Team at Harvard Family Research Project
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