Medford Mail Tribune
May 4, 2007
"Chalkboard understandably spent considerable time poking into how districts spend money now and how they might be encouraged to do so more efficiently in the future...These suggestions don't come from a few activists eager to tell educators how to do their jobs. They are condensed from [a] three-year, fact-finding process and reflect a tremendous amount of public participation... "
Running Start
Running Start Training Program: Are you a school looking to involve ALL families but often struggle to find the best approach for reaching those that are especially hard to reach? We all know that when parents are involved, their children do better in school. Yet some parents aren't getting enough information about what's going on in their children's classrooms, and often don't have the time—or the facts—to become effective advocates for their children. (For more background, click here.)
To help get all parents involved, Chalkboard created a two-part tool kit, Running Start, aimed at improving student achievement among Oregon's most at-risk youth. Major pieces of the tool kit have been tested around the state, but schools need help having the information in an easy-to-use kit. Running Start provides schools with the basic tools outlined below and you can then tailor the materials to meet the individual needs of your own school culture.
Staff Training Kit
The first phase of Running Start contains tools and resources to conduct an all-day workshop or smaller one-hour seminars with teachers, administrators, support staff, and parent leaders. The aim is to educate adult leaders with a deeper understanding of the barriers to parent engagement and how to overcome them.
Click here for the Staff Training Toolkit
Parent Training Kit
The second phase of Running Start is designed to help parents become full partners in their children's education. The interactive content covers a variety of topics from "How to navigate the U.S. education system" to "Benefits of Parent Engagement," and are provided in English, Russian, and Spanish.
Click here for the Parent Training Toolkit
Additional Resources
The following is a supplemental resource provided by NWREL geared toward cultivating effective and meaningful partnerships among schools, families, and communities.
Click here to access the NWREL Partnerships by Design guide...
