Parent Engagement

AT&T/United Way Worldwide Grant Kick-Off Meeting Facilitation

The Challenge 

AT&T and United Way Worldwide (UWW) awarded twenty sites nationwide with a Family Engagement for High School Success Grant, which supports its initiative to help parents and caregivers get more involved in their child’s education, leading to high school success and workforce readiness.

UWW needed to support these sites with the initial planning and awareness building around family engagement in their local communities.

Our Approach 

UWW teamed up with Collaborative to facilitate this initial conversation. Bringing in our expertise on not only effective facilitation, but also extensive experience with family engagement, we guided these sites through the initial planning phases and helped them design effective strategies for their outreach. 

Our Impact 

By providing extensive support from the onset, these sites are equipped with the necessary knowledge and tools to engage families in their communities. The Harvard Family Research Project will be providing an ongoing evaluation of this project, which allows sites to understand the effectives of their strategies. As sites improve outreach, they support the UWW’s long-term goal of cutting the high school dropout rate in half by 2018.

Date Added: Mar 31, 2010
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Parent Engagement with the San Francisco Education Fund

The Challenge 

The San Francisco Education Fund (SFEF) asked Collaborative to develop a discussion guide for a parent engagement process on the issues of student enrollment, retention and recruitment.

Our Approach 

Our team partnered with SFEF to write, edit, design and test the implementation of this guide, as well as analyze findings gathered from conversations that will help shape decisions about school consolidation and enrollment policies. This collaboration complements previous SFEF engagement tools and Collaborative’s tools for use in other communities to guide a 90–120 minute conversation about the issues most important in the San Francisco community.

This project continued with observation and documentation of meetings held in San Francisco. In total, conversations were held with over 900 parents and community members about what they want for and from the schools in the city. In partnership with the SFEF and the project team Collaborative assisted with the documentation of findings from the community and the production of a final report to the school board.

Our Impact 

The knowledge gained from the report and process not only benefited the work of SFEF as an organization, but also contributed to the work of the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). SFUSD looked to the community conversations that were part of the Student Enrollment, Recruitment and Retention Plan process for input to guide the development of the District Scorecard—its long range plan that reflects community aspirations to provide a high quality education and close achievement gaps among students. 

The Public Education Network noted SFEF’s report and Collaborative’s role in its April 13, 2007 Network Weekly NewsBlast, sent to local education funds and individual subscribers throughout the country.

Date Added: Mar 12, 2010
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