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Family and Community Involvement in Student Learning

A-Z List of Products in this Category

2009 National PIRC Project Directors' Conference (2009) Parental Information and Resource Center (PIRC) leaders gathered in Washington, DC, for the National PIRC Project Directors’ Conference on July 22–24. The conference was organized around four content strands: early childhood parent education; statewide leadership and partnerships; communicating with parents about state and local report cards, public school choice, and supplemental education services; and parental involvement strategies described in Section 1118 of the Title I provisions.

A Toolkit for Title I Parental Involvement (2009) Designed for educators who are implementing Title I, Part A parental involvement provisions, this toolkit includes detailed explanations of the provisions and 33 tools to help states, districts, and schools meet the requirements.

Connection Collection (2009) This searchable, online database includes annotations for over 140 articles, monographs, and other literature related to school, family, and community involvement in education.

Database of Online Resources for School Improvement (2009) This online database lists online resources for school improvement by topics that include: Curriculum and Instruction, Family and Community Engagement, High School Reform, Leadership, School Improvement and Accountability, Teacher Quality, and NCLB.

Policy Development Tools: Engaging Parents/Families in the School Community (2009) This resource, developed by SEDL’s Southeast Comprehensive Center (SECC), is a compendium of tools for promoting policies supporting parent and family involvement.

Afterschool Training Toolkit: Building Quality Enrichment Activities (2008) This online toolkit provides resources for developing fun, innovative, and academically enriching activities for afterschool and expanded learning programs. The toolkit includes promising practices and sample lessons in the arts, literacy, math, science, technology, and homework help.

Price: $0 Afterschool Training Toolkit DVD: Short Videos of Promising Practices in Afterschool (2008) Brief videos illustrate promising teaching techniques in six key areas: the arts, homework, literacy, math, science, and technology. Use these free videos with afterschool staff to explore new ways to embed academics in fun afterschool activities.

SEDL Letter, Volume XX, Number 2 (Aug. 2008): Afterschool, Family, and Community (2008) This issue of SEDL Letter is devoted to topics centered around afterschool and family and community involvement, with a focus on what the latest research shows.

The School-Family Connection: Looking at the Larger Picture, A Review of Current Literature (2008) This review of family involvement literature published from 2005 to 2008 explores a range of family involvement programs, challenges, needs, strategies, and contexts.

Southeast Comprehensive Center e-Bulletin, Volume 1, Number 2: Parental Involvement (2007)

How Can Schools Involve Family and Community Members in Supporting a Child's Readiness for School?: An Interactive Research Brief (2006) In this module, you will learn research-based strategies for helping children transition into the early grades and develop a strong foundation for academic success.

Developing a Collaborative Team Approach to Support Family and Community Connections With Schools: What Can School Leaders Do? (2005) This strategy brief includes ideas for involving families actively in the decision-making and implementation efforts needed for school improvement.

Easing the Transition from PreK to Kindergarten: What Schools and Families Can Do to Address Child Readiness (2005) This strategy brief discusses the importance of school-family connections in ensuring a successful transition from PreK to Kindergarten.

Engaging Families at the Secondary Level: What Schools Can Do to Support Family Involvement (2005) This strategy brief discusses strategies for successful family involvement at the middle school and high school levels.

La ley "No Child Left Behind" Opción de cambio de secuela: Guía informativa para padres de familia (2005) The purpose of this guide is to help parents understand the school transfer option when a school has not met the standards required by the No Child Left Behind Act. Also available in Spanish.

NCLB School Transfer Option: Parent Information Guide (2005) The purpose of this guide is to help parents understand the school transfer option when a school has not met the standards required by the No Child Left Behind Act. Also available in Spanish.

Organizing Family and Community Connections With Schools: How Do School Staff Build Meaningful Relationships With All Stakeholders? (2005) This strategy brief examines proactive strategies schools can use to help them build strong relationships with family and community.

Reaching Out to Diverse Populations: What Can Schools Do to Foster Family-School Connections? (2005) This strategy brief includes strategies schools can use to promote involvement of families from diverse cultural backgrounds.

What Do We Mean by Family and Community Connections with Schools?: An Interactive Research Brief (2005) In this interactive research brief, you will learn eight types of family and community connections as well as discover the benefits of family and community connections with schools. You will also discover how to plan strategies for increasing or developing family and community involvement in your school.

What Structures Can Help Schools Create Effective Family and Community Involvement That Supports Learning Outside of School?: An Interactive Research Brief (2005) In this module you will learn research-based strategies that involve families and partner organizations to support learning in a variety of settings other than the classroom. You will also explore a framework for effective family and community involvement that is based on current research.

Learning Outside of the School Classroom: What Teachers Can Do to Involve Family in Supporting Classroom Instruction (2004) This strategy brief was produced by SEDL's National Center for Family and Community Connections with Schools, part of SEDL's Regional Educational Laboratory contract. The Center links people with research-based information and resources that they can use to effectively connect schools, families, and communities.

Price: $22 Readiness: School, Family, & Community Connections (2004) The fourth research synthesis focusing on family and community connections with schools describes 48 research studies on the contextual factors associated with children's school readiness.

Price: $20 Diversity: School, Family, and Community Connections (2003) SEDL's third research synthesis in a series on family and community connections with schools focuses on race/ethnicity, culture (including language), and socioeconomic status.

Price: $26 A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement (2002) This review of the research examines the growing evidence that family and community connections with schools make a difference in student success.

SEDLetter, Volume XIV, Number 1 (Feb. 2002): Family and Community Connections with Schools (2002) This issue of SEDLetter focuses on family and community connections with schools, school-based mentoring, charter schools, and teacher education programs.

What Do We Mean by "Family and Community Connections with Schools?" (2002) This strategy brief was produced by SEDL's National Center for Family and Community Connections with Schools, part of SEDL's Regional Educational Laboratory contract. The Center links people with research-based information and resources that they can use to effectively connect schools, families, and communities.

Price: $14 Emerging Issues in School, Family, & Community Connections (2001) This research synthesis highlights critical areas of work in family and community connections with schools where clarification, agreement, and further development are needed.

¿Qué pasa en la escuela de mi hijo?: Una guía para el padre de familia sobre las buenas escuelas (2000) Este libretto es para padres de familia que desean comprender el cómo y el por qué las escuelas están cambiando sus metodologías de enseanza. Lo llevará adentro de salones de clases que están utilizando metodologías inovativas en el aprendizaje - con resultados impresionantes.

Benefits2: Connecting Rural School Improvement and Community Development (2000) This paper discusses ways in which rural communities and schools can work together to guarantee their students receive the best education possible.

Benefits2: Service Learning: A Strategy for rural school improvement and community revitalization (2000) This paper is dedicated to discussing ways in which rural communities and schools can work together to guarantee their students receive the best education possible.

Benefits2: Rural Student Entrepreneurs: Linking Commerce and Community (2000) This paper is dedicated to discussing ways in which rural communities and schools can work together to guarantee their students receive the best education possible.

Benefits2: Adapting to Community-Based Learning (2000) This paper focuses in greater depth on the kinds of changes and commitments needed from school systems if service learning and entrepreneurial education projects are to succeed.

Benefits2: Collaborative strategies for revitalizing rural schools and communities (2000) This issue of the Benefits series of papers focuses on strategies for using a formal school-community collaborative to help plan and implement successful projects.

Benefits2: Making the collaborative process work (2000) This issue, the last in the Benefits series of papers, continues our focus on approaches and tools that can help to guide collaborative groups.

Building Support for Better Schools: Seven Steps to Engaging Hard-to-Reach Communities (2000) This practical guide is designed for educators, civic leaders, community organizers or anyone else interested in involving traditionally hard-to-reach communities.

Calling the Roll: Study Circles for Better Schools (Policy Research Report) (2000) This report discusses the efficiency of study circles in increasing interaction between the public and state decision makers.

Collaborative Action Team Process: Bringing home, school, community, and students together to improve results for children and families: Final Research Report (2000) This publication is the final report from the Collaborative Action Team (CAT) project and includes information about participants, characteristics and implementation of the CAT process, research design and methodology, site characteristics, sustainability, student outcomes, results in CAT sites, and implications and recommendations.

Creating Collaborative Action Teams: Working Together for Student Success (2000) This multi-media kit is a set of concepts, activities, and resources that individuals, school districts and other organizations can use to develop a partnership between home, school, community, and students at the local level.

Price: On Sale! 50% discount during November. Previously $4  Now only $2.00 Family and Community Involvement: Reaching Out to Diverse Populations (2000) This book is geared toward teachers, principals, and superintendents who want to develop meaningful parent and community involvement in culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

Price: $4 La creación de apoyo para mejores escuelas: Siete pasos para lograr la participación de todas las communidades (2000) Esta guía es práctica y es diseñada para maestros, líderes cívicos, organizadores de la comunidad o cualquier persona que le interesa involucrar a las comunidades que tradicionalmente no participan en las escuelas.

Price: $4 La participación de la familia y la comunidad: El acercamiento a las diversas poblaciones (2000) Este libro está dirigido a maestros, directores y superintendentes que desean generar el involucramiento significativo de los padres de familia y comunidad por parte de miembros comunitarios de diverso origen cultural y linguístico.

Making the Connection: A Guide to Involving Policymakers in a Community Dialogue on Education (2000) This booklet is designed for anyone who is interested in bringing state policymakers and their constituents together to dialogue and deliberate about public education.

Making the Most of the Connection: A Policymaker's Guide to Participating in a Community Dialogue on Education (2000) This booklet is designed to serve as a handy guide to participating with constituents in community dialogues on education.

Policymakers Build Bridges: (Insights on Education Policy, Practice, and Research, Number 13) (2000) This brief is the last in a series of Insights on SEDL's investigation of the potential use of study circles to engage the public and state-level decision makers in discussions about education.

SEDLetter, Volume XII, Number 1: Putting the Public back into Public Schools (2000) This issue of SEDLetter includes the articles: (1) Putting the Public back into Public Schools, (2) Study Circles Stave Off Crises for Two Arkansas School Districts, (3) The Community Is the Key to Engaging Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families, (4) Parents Are Partners in Fabens, and (5) The Arts of Liberty: Absent from School Today.

Thriving Together: Connecting Rural School Improvement and Community Development (English) (2000) This book provides the background information and basic tools needed to start a joint school-community development effort.

What's Going on in My Child's School: A Parent's Guide to Good Schools (2000) This booklet is for parents who want to understand how and why schools are changing their approach. The booklet takes you inside classrooms that are using innovative approaches to learning—with impressive results.

Calling the Roll: Study Circles for Better Schools (video) (1999) This videotape provides information about the study circle model of dialogue and what it offers to community members, school staffs, policymakers, and others who are interested in organizing community dialogues on education to inform policymaking.

Deliberating About Education: A New Policy Tool? (Insights on Education Policy, Practice, and Research, Number 10) (1999) This brief examines the potential of deliberative dialogue as a tool for connecting state policymakers and the public.

Price: $10 La deliberación pública: Una forma de enlazar la reforma escolar con la diversidad cultural (1999) Esta publicación cubre varios procesos de la deliberación pœblica con respecto a la reforma escolar y asuntos de diversidad.

Price: $10 Public Deliberation: A Tool for Connecting School Reform and Diversity (1999) This publication discusses various processes of public deliberation in regard to school reform and diversity issues.

Speak Up!: Engaging Policymakers with Educators and Communities in Deliberative Dialogue (Insights on Education Policy, Practice, and Research, Number 9) (1999) This brief introduces the concept of deliberative dialogue and its potential utility for policymakers, communities, and educators.

Calling the Roll: A Resource Guide to Education-Related Data in Arkansas (1998) This resource guide was produced by SEDL to accompany study circles in Arkansas.

Calling the Roll: A Resource Guide to Education-Related Data in Oklahoma (1998) This resource guide was produced by SEDL to accompany study circles in Oklahoma.

SEDLetter, Volume X, Number 3: Pulling Together (1998) This issue of SEDLetter includes the articles: (1) A Comprehensive Collaboration, (2) Designs on Comprehensive School Reform, and (3) Resources for Family and Community Involvement in Schools.

Price: On Sale! 50% discount during November. Previously $5  Now only $2.50 Building Home, School, and Community Partnerships (1995) These three handbooks identify a successful process and key issues in the development of home, school, and community partnerships, and provide lessons learned from five demonstration sites.

Continuity in Early Childhood: A Framework for Home, School, and Community Linkages (1995) This document focuses on what a community can do to support families with young children.

Creating New Governance Structures (1994) This publication discusses the trend toward increasing local participation in designing and implementing new structures for education, health, and human services delivery and provides examples taken from California, Colorado, and Kentucky.