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Teamwork: Parent/School Success Stories

Partnerships among schools, parents, and the community are essential in creating a thriving school community. (Many state offices have made family/school teamwork a priority. See some examples.) Such partnerships are being formed across the country. Here are just a few success stories from schools and communities that have joined forces to make children's education a teamwork priority.

Parents and Science: The Transformation of a School
The Legacy of McKinley Nash
"Hey! I wrote all that?"
The Mystery of Parent Involvement

In the case of this story, it took only one parent to help turn science learning around–not just for her children, but for every student in the school.

Parents and Science: The Transformation of a School

Science just wasn't being taught in this Peninsula school; a K—5 elementary school in Northern California. Teachers were beleaguered with the demands of teaching students to read and write, and with preparing them for the statewide standardized tests on reading and math. Science was last on the list of priorities–especially the kind of science experiences that required more than reading.

Carol, a parent who loved science, made sure to present several exciting science activities each year in her child's K—3 classes. In Carol's case, the activities came from the Great Explorations in Math and Science (GEMS) program, a collection of supplementary science units for preschool through 8th-grade students. (The GEMS units have step-by-step instructions, so they're easy to present even if a person doesn't have much background in science or teaching.)

The school's teachers were thrilled to have the help, and the children adored the activities and hands-on materials. Each year Carol worked with her child's teacher to decide what GEMS unit to present, making sure it related to the district-wide standards. As her second child came along through the same grades, experiencing the same kinds of success, Carol decided to try to institutionalize this approach in the school curriculum. She got together with another activist parent and fleshed out the idea. They consulted with the principal, presented the idea at a school staff meeting, and got more input from the teachers. Their suggestions were adopted! The school agreed to make this parent-assisted science enrichment program a regular part of every school year.

With the input of teachers, three GEMS units were identified for every grade level, K through 5. The PTA purchased or assembled kits for those units, and the kits are now stored in a closet at the school. Every year, Carol puts out a call for parents who've expressed interest in presenting the GEMS science units. She and another activist parent hold "training sessions," modeling how to use the kit to present the unit to students. In the training, parents actually go through the unit as the children would. As parents gain experience and confidence with specific GEMS units, they share tips about what works really well, collect additional materials to enhance the kits, and volunteer to assist with future training sessions. With this energy and dedication, the program has flourished and gained momentum over time.

Here's what can happen when a school administrator decides to involve and empower parents for the good of the students, the school, and the communityò.

The Legacy of McKinley Nash

(Adapted with permission from the Study Circles Resource Center: www.studycircles.org.)

McKinley Nash persevered.

The schools in Inglewood, California, an inner-ring suburb of Los Angeles, face many challenges typical of urban education: few resources, stressed and stretched families, disconnection between the schools and the community. When McKinley Nash became Superintendent of the Inglewood Unified School District in 1994, the district was teeming with problems and suffering from low morale.

Nash thought he knew of at least one way of addressing these issues. In his previous job, as Superintendent of the Centinela School District, Nash had instituted "Quality Circles," a process used in business to help employees give input to managers. Adapted for use in schools, the system encouraged teachers and staff to let administrators know what was wrong within the system and suggest ways of fixing it.

While working for the Association of California School Administrators, Nash met Stephen Thom, a mediator for the U.S. Department of Justice who had extensive experience with "study circles." Nash immediately saw the potential of study circles to bring the principles of quality circles to bear in engaging parents and other community members. He mandated that the schools in his district organize at least one study circle apiece.

After several months of planning, twenty-eight study circles were held at twenty Inglewood schools in late 1997 and early 1998. Most of the principals and all of the school's community liaisons were trained as study-circle facilitators by Stephen Thom. Nash was determined to have the principals go through the training–in part, so they could strengthen their listening skills.

Bringing Parents into the Loop

Educators immediately noticed that the study circles helped improve relations between Hispanic and African American parents. Inglewood's students are roughly sixty-percent Hispanic and forty-percent African American, and the schools had experienced violence between the two groups almost every year during the time of Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican day of celebration. "Before," said Sophia Dossman, one of the community liaisons, "there wasn't much interaction between Hispanic and African American parents. The study-circles process, and the cultural sharing that happened during the process at my school, helped form more positive relationships."

In addition to improvements in parent relations, the overall level of parent involvement has risen since the development of study circles. Participation in PTA meetings, donations to schools, and volunteer participation at schools have all increased. Some staff community liaisons have learned to refine and tailor parent-involvement opportunities more than in the past. One liaison, for example, realized that the parents at her school work long hours and many different shifts. When she enlisted parents' help in painting school buildings, she asked one set of parents to do the preparation so that the following group could come in and do the painting itself.

The new partnership between parents and schools is evident in many new projects at Inglewood schools. Many parents now volunteer their time to clean school facilities and take care of the shrubbery and school gardens. Across the district, after-school programs and community activities (such as ESL and computer classes for parents) have also been implemented. The schools have gained credibility by following through on many of the recommendations made by the study circles. At one school, parents suggested that the principal needed an assistant; Nash gave the approval to hire one. At the same school, study-circle participants recommended a new team-teaching strategy; it's now in effect. The circles have also helped individual schools become more confident in stating their desires to the district administration. The study-circle report to the district from Albert Monroe Magnet Middle School reads: "The parents feel that their time involved in this process should not be taken for granted, and that some movement on their suggestions should take place in a timely manner."

Empowering the Community

Exciting as they are, all of these school-level outcomes pale by comparison to what happened at the community level. For some time, Inglewood had been experiencing a shortage of funds for capital improvements. In many schools the roofs leaked, asbestos was still present, and space was so limited that libraries and science labs had been converted into classrooms. In the study circles, participants not only became convinced of the need to improve school facilities, they also gave substantial input on what those improvements should be. They rallied to pass a bond issue called Measure K; parents and students volunteered time at campaign headquarters, created phone trees, sent out mass mailings, and set up various means of outreach to educate others about the measure. Measure K passed with eighty-eight percent of the voters in favor.

McKinley Nash will be remembered not only for his voice, but for helping so many others—parents, schools, and members of the community—find theirs.

When an educator—or any proactive adult–sees an opportunity for parents and other adult caregivers to get involved and benefit students, wonderful things can resultò.

"Hey! I wrote all that?"

Educators, teachers, parents, and other community volunteers have teamed up to participate in a hugely popular "Writers' Room" program at a high school in Berkeley, California. Berkeley resident Mary Lee Cole, an educational program designer, introduced the idea, adapted from one a New Jersey school district has used for nearly ten years to help narrow student achievement gaps.

In March 2001 Cole trained more than fifty volunteer "writing coaches"–adults from all walks of life–to work one-on-one with Berkeley High School
students once a week. In the first three months, the coaches worked with some 300 students at the school, most of them freshman.

An article in the Berkeley Daily Planet (June 11, 2001) records the moment when the chairperson of the English Department saw "this neatly dressed cluster of nurses, accountants, carpenters, screenwriters, and other professionals, waiting patiently outside her classroom, wanting nothing more than to teach her students how to write." At first, many of the students didn't want to go with the writing coaches because they didn't know what to expect. Once initial hesitation was overcome, however, the program turned out to be an enormous success. And since a coaching team works with all students in a class, no youngster feels singled out for "improvement."

The Writers' Room program provides an opportunity to customize a key part of the education experience to the needs of individual students. By sitting down with students and helping them work through writing assignments detail by detail, the coaches offer the kind of support that keeps students from giving up. The coaches, by engaging in casual conversation on an assigned topic, often show a student that he really does have a lot to say. They help students get those difficult first sentences down on paper, and then a few more sentences, until students realize–"Hey! Look what I wrote!" One teacher said she'd seen some students go from ignoring assignments altogether to turning in neatly typed essays–a great indication of new confidence in their writing abilities. The program offers nonjudgmental interaction and a calm environment where students can focus, away from peer pressures and classroom acting-out.

The Writers' Room has already narrowed the achievement gap at Berkeley High. One English teacher said her students went up an average of one full letter grade after working with the writing coaches. The program's popularity is on the rise. By next year the program expects 200 coaches volunteering an estimated 9,000 hours–enough to make coaches available to all of Berkeley High's 900 freshman and several 10th- and 11th-grade classes. A pilot program is now planned for middle school.

Students at Berkeley High School have been given a chance to learn, hone, and use writing skills on which they might otherwise have given up. Improved writing skills are a great help in all subject areas, and an essential, lifelong asset.

And on the occasion when an entire community can become a partner in its children's education, it can be magicò.

The Mystery of Parent Involvement

For some years, the Lawrence Hall of Science has designed successful school outreach programs to bring exciting science activities to schools throughout Northern California and beyond. One of the most successful of these is the "Mystery Festival," an all-school event in which students engage in forensic science to try to solve a fictional crime. The festival includes a crime scene with numerous clues, and stations at which tests (such as fingerprinting, powder analysis, chromatography) are conducted in an attempt to determine "who dunnit." It's intriguing and challenging–and it teaches a whole lot of solid science.

When the Great Explorations in Math and Science (GEMS) program adapted the mystery idea into a teacher's guide for the classroom (with optional suggestions for an all-school program), we expected it would be popular–and it is! Many teachers have set up the crime scene and stations in their classrooms, and we constantly receive letters from students claiming to have the solution! Students throughout the country have grappled with complex logic as they've worked their way through the mystery. (A Pennsylvania teacher's use of the activities was featured on the front-page of Education Week.)

There are two versions of the mystery: one for younger students, called "Who Borrowed Mr. Bear?" and one for older students, "The Case of the Missing Millionaire" (also known as "the Felix Mystery"; it centers on a character namedòuhmòFelix Navidad). He's joined by a number of other cleverly named suspects. For the older mystery, there's no one "right" solution–which can be initially frustrating for students, but means that discussion and debate of clues and theories continues long after the activity.

We expected Mystery Festival would be a success, but we didn't realize what a fantastic vehicle it could be for parent involvement and community education until we started to hear from activist parents who were organizing all-school gatherings. Some of these parent groups were using the activities to help educate other parents, teachers, and the community about the educational value of activity-based science. One of the most successful efforts of this type took place in Ridgebury, Connecticut, a town of 20,000 people and five elementary schools. In Ridgebury, Peter and Rebecca Coffey, along with other members of the Ridgebury PTA, organized a town-wide Mystery Festival!
In several detailed letters the Coffeys told us of their success. They wrote:

"The event was organized and sponsored by parents, with the interest and support of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade science teachers, the town science and curriculum coordinators, and representatives from other town PTAs."

In addition to providing a number of excellent suggestions for adapting the activities, the Coffeys described their creation of an accompanying mystery video (and enclosed a copy). Their letter was euphoric:

The parent participation was called "magical" by one participant, and no one disagreed. This is an opportunity for parents and children to think together, play together, learn together, and work as equals on the solution to the crime. The ambiguity of the outcome reinforces this opportunity: no one can say, "See, I was right!" We also found that many more fathers got involved than with many PTA parent/child programs. Finally, by involving the parents who really enjoyed the event, the word about hands-on science gets spread far and wide quickly.

Several other large-group programs have been developed by the GEMS program, including Build It! Festival, a Microscopic Explorations event, an eco-mystery called Environmental Detectives, Math Around the World, and Bubble Festival. Any or all of them, along with FAMILY MATH or other such programs, make great vehicles for parent participation and the spread of active learning in science and mathematics.

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Lawrence Hall of Science    © Tuesday, 09-Feb-2010 10:28:26 PST The Regents of the University of California    Contact Parent Portal    Updated Thursday, 28-May-2009 11:49:21 PDT