FAMILY-SCHOOL PARTNERSHIPS

Strengthening Partnerships with Families

Each of our schools has a partnership team of diverse family leaders, teachers and the school principal working together to support all students' academic success and welcome all families. In 2011, we became part of the National Network of Partnership Schools. We are using their tools, based on 30 years of research, to strengthen our partnership with families. This page provides more information about our family partnership work.

Draft Partnership Plans
June 26, 2011

Review the DRAFT partnership plans for 2011-2012. These plans were drafted by the family-school partnership teams (more information about team members below) with input from faculty and families.

Champlain Elementary
C.P. Smith Elementary
Edmunds Elementary
Flynn Elementary
Integrated Arts Academy
Sustainability Academy
 
Edmunds Middle School
Hunt Middle School
 
Burlington High School: As part of the high school re-design work, the BHS team focused on drafting a family survey. A full plan has not yet been developed.

Our Family-School Partnership Teams

On March 9th, over 80 teachers, parents and principals will learn together how to build on the work we are doing to strengthen our partnerships to help all kids succeed. See the following links:
Find out more about our partnership program.
View the list of team members from each school.
Partnership Workshop Presentation
Find out more about the March 9th training workshop.

Tools for Teams
June 6, 2011

Trying to find contact info for one of your team members? Looking for a checklist for communicating about your team's plan and connecting with faculty, parents and PTO? Need a copy of the "Partnership Plan" template? Want to learn more about how we can evaluate the success of our teams? Check out the links below. Don't see what you need? Email Dawn at dmoskowi@bsdvt.org.
What is a Partnership Team?
Team Member Email Directory
Communication Checklist
Flyer - Sample Announcement of Team Members
One-Year Action Plan Template
Partnership Team Timeline
Six Types of Involvement
NNPS Evaluation

Training Video from Partnership Workshop
June 6, 2011

Missed the March 9th One-Day Workshop? New team member? Need a refresher?
Watch the video
**You must enter the username: Pircvt1 and Password: bsdnnps1 to access the video.

Parent Involvement Surveys and Focus Groups
March 2011

We are gathering information about parent involvement at our elementary schools. This is part of an overall evaluation of our schools, and it is grant funded. Already underway is a phone survey to learn more about parent involvement. These surveys will be completed by April 15. Families are randomly selected at each school. Fifth Element Associates, an independent research group, designed the process and conducts the survey to match professional research standards. They make sure that the sample of families that is surveyed reflect the diversity of our schools. This research helps us understand how we can work better with families. If you have already participated in the phone survey, THANK YOU!

In addition, we will hold a series of small focus groups at both IAA and SA so that deeper group conversations with parents can happen. There will be 4 groups (two at each school), and each group will have approximately eight people. The groups will occur in late May or the first week in June.

This is the second year of our Parent Involvement evaluation. We will be getting the results this summer and we look forward to sharing what we find out.

National Network of Partnership Schools
September 22, 2010

Each of our schools has developed partnership teams. To create strong partnerships with families and the community, we are becoming part of the National Network of Partnership Schools.
Learn more.

Parent Involvement Update
September 22, 2010

Throughout the district, we are committed to strengthening our partnership with parents to support the success of all of our students. Today, I'd like to share with you our progress and planning for parent involvement. In every school, we have a number of initiatives underway to reach this goal. Each school has a full roster of events to empower parents to be involved in their children's education and to build community.

This year, we are working to put in place some tools suggested through parent input and research. We are also recommending a new model to link parent involvement with student achievement and school improvement.
Read more about our parent involvement programs.

Key Factors in Parent Involvement
July 12, 2010

We gained important information about parent involvement from research conducted last fall as part of our grant funding for the magnet academies. (See "Parents Positive about Academies"). The research showed that:

  • Teacher outreach drives involvement
  • Parents are seeking regular and responsive communication and opportunities to provide input and be involved in decision-making
View the presentation.

We will further explore the suggestions to increase parent involvement offered by the researchers. We have also begun the process to review our parent involvement policy and continue to work on ways to increase communication with families in each of our schools.