School, Family, & Community Partnerships in a Multi-Tiered Framework

Focused Area

Improving School Climate for Youth-At-Risk

Relevance to Focused Area

Muti-Tiered Systems of Support is an evidence-based model of educating students using data-based problem solving to integrate academic and behavioral instruction/intervention. The integrated instruction/intervention delivered to students across multiple tiers are based on student need as well as ensuring district resources reach the appropriate students/schools at appropriate levels to accelerate performance of ALL students to achieve and/or exceed proficiency. Family involvement is a key component of student and school success and improving school climate for youth.

Primary Strand

Family & Community

Relevance to Primary Strand

Family involvement is a key component of student and school success.

Schools that are committed to student success are creative in accommodating students and families

  • Replacing punitive processes with ones that seek to understand and improve a child’s situation
  • Creating schedules, policies, and programs that take into account students’ home-life challenges

(Henderson and Berla, p.168-p.171, Failure is Not an Option, Blankstein, Corwin and Hope, 2004)

Guidelines According to the Research

Standards identified by the National PTA build on six types of parent involvement identified by Dr. Joyce L. Epstein of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University:

  • Parenting
  • Communicating
  • Volunteering
  • Student Learning
  • Shared Decision-Making
  • Collaborating with Community

Benefits of Family Involvement

  • Higher test scores
  • Better grades
  • Better attendance
  • Higher levels of homework completion
  • More positive student motivation
  • Improved attitudes about school work

Darsch, Miao, & Shippen. (2004) A Model for Involving Parents of Children with Learning and Behavior Problems in the Schools: Preventing School Failure 48(3), 24-35

Brief Program Description

Family involvement is a key component of student and school success and improving school climate for youth. This presentation highlights the importance of school, family and community partnerships in a multi-tiered framework of support and provides suggestions for best practices to meaningfully involve families.

Summary

Family involvement is a key component of student and school success and improving school climate for youth. This presentation highlights the importance of school, family and community partnerships in a multi-tiered framework of support and provides suggestions for best practices to meaningfully involve families. The suggestions will encompass strategies for preparing staff to work with families, how staff can support families in creating homes that prepare students to learn, how to focus on recruitment and commitment from families, and tips and materials for families. Data-based decisions are an important aspect of multi-tiered frameworks of support and ensuring that the interventions schools are using to support family involvement are indeed producing valuable outcomes for students and families. Discussion will focus on reviewing data and ensuring data are useful/accurate.

Evidence


Guidelines According to the Research

Standards identified by the National PTA build on six types of parent involvement identified by Dr. Joyce L. Epstein of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University:

  • Parenting
  • Communicating
  • Volunteering
  • Student Learning
  • Shared Decision-Making
  • Collaborating with Community

Benefits of Family Involvement

  • Higher test scores
  • Better grades
  • Better attendance
  • Higher levels of homework completion
  • More positive student motivation
  • Improved attitudes about school work

Darsch, Miao, & Shippen. (2004) A Model for Involving Parents of Children with Learning and Behavior Problems in the Schools: Preventing School Failure 48(3), 24-35

Family Involvement has a positive effect on student behavior

  • When families are involved, students exhibit more positive attitudes and behavior.
  • When students report feeling support from both home and school, they have moreself-confidence, feel school is more important, and they tend to do better in school.
  • Student at-risk behaviors such as alcohol use, violence, and other anti-social behaviorsdecrease as parent involvement increases.

(National PTA, 10/28/2005)

Demonstrated Benefits to Teachers/Schools:

  • Greater job satisfaction
  • Higher ratings of teaching skills from bothparents and principals
  • Higher ratings of school effectiveness
  • Improved classroom behavior through increased knowledge of children’s family, cultural, and community contexts

(Adapted from Christenson, 1996)

Research Findings

  • Low-income African American children whose families maintained high rates of parent participation in elementary school are more likely to complete high school.
  • Low-income African American children with mothers involved in their education showed more self-control in unruly and disorganized classrooms than children whose parents did not provide support.
  • Latino youth who are academically high achieving have parents who provide encouragement and emphasize the value ofeducation as a way out of poverty.
  • Harvard Family Research Project,2006
  • In fact the most accurate predictor of a student’s achievement in school is not income or social status, but the extent to which the student’s family is able to:
  • Create a home environment that encourages learning
  • Become involved in their children’s education at school and in the community

(Henderson and Berla, 1997)

“At all grade levels, the evidence suggests that school policies, teacher practices and family practices are more important than race, parent education, family size, marital status and even grade level in determining whether parents continue to be part of their children’s education.”

(Joyce Epstein)

“No matter what the demographics, students are more likely to earn higher grades and test scores, attend school regularly, have better social skills, graduate and go on to post­secondary education when schools and families partner”

(Karen Mapp, Family Involvement Equals Student Success No Matter Background, August 10, 2006)

Format

Poster Presentation

Biographical Sketch

Jodie Soracco is the State Coordinator for the School Climate Transformation Project with Nevada’s PBIS Technical Assistance Center. Jodie Soracco has been working with Positive Behavior Support-Nevada since 2008 as the Northwest Training Coordinator. In 2012, she took on an additional role as state coordinator for School-wide Positive Behavior Support. Mrs. Soracco previously worked for the Washoe County School District as a teacher with experience teaching in elementary and special education classrooms. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary and Special Education, and a Master’s Degree in Special Education with a focus on Emotional and Behavior Disorders, with an endorsement in autism. Mrs. Soracco is working towards her Board Certification in Behavior Analysis and is a mother of two young boys.

Kaci Fleetwood is the State Coordinator for Nevada’s School Climate Transformation Project. Kaci Fleetwood currently works for Nevada’s PBIS Technical Assistance Center, located on the University of Nevada campus. Kaci Fleetwood previous worked for Washoe County School district, where she taught youth in both general and special education settings at the elementary and high school levels. She has worked as an implementation specialist, coaching teachers at the school-site, zone, and district levels. She earned bachelors and a master’s degree in education with instructional licenses in elementary education, special education, English as a second language, instructional coaching, literacy/reading specialist, and is currently studying applied behavior analysis.

Ashley Greenwald is the Project Director of Nevada’s PBIS Technical Assistance Center. Previously, she was the Administrative and Clinical Director for Positive Behavior Support-Nevada. Mrs. Greenwald assisted in writing the School Climate Transformation Grant and the SAMHSA Project Aware Grant, which were both awarded to the state of Nevada in 2014. Mrs. Greenwald has years of experience working with children and adults with intellectual disabilities and challenging behavior. Mrs. Greenwald is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Florida and a master’s degree in behavior analysis from the University of Nevada, Reno. Mrs. Greenwald is expecting to graduate with a Ph.D. in behavior analysis from the University of Nevada, Reno in May 2015.

Kathryn Roose is the Evaluation and Data Manager for Nevada’s PBIS Technical Assistance Center. Previously, she worked at Positive Behavior Support-Nevada as a Training and Consultation Specialist, providing support to families and school teams addressing challenging behavior, as a Behavior Interventionist and Case Manager working with children and adults with intellectual disorders, and as a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor. Mrs. Roose holds a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from the University of California, San Diego, and a Master of Arts degree in behavior analysis from the University of Nevada, Reno, and currently a doctoral student in behavior analysis at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Start Date

11-5-2015 5:45 PM

End Date

11-5-2015 6:45 PM

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Nov 5th, 5:45 PM Nov 5th, 6:45 PM

School, Family, & Community Partnerships in a Multi-Tiered Framework

Family involvement is a key component of student and school success and improving school climate for youth. This presentation highlights the importance of school, family and community partnerships in a multi-tiered framework of support and provides suggestions for best practices to meaningfully involve families.