Kennewick School District
Kennewick, WA
Bottom row left to right: Yesenia Chavez; Alyssa St. Hilaire (NNPS Key Contact and Federal Programs Director); Nesreen Al Muzayen; Paola Menjivar (NNPS Key Contact and Family and Community Engagement Manager)
New ATP Chair Orientation
Kennewick School District’s leaders for partnerships work to improve school-based programs of family and community engagement. In the past year, over half of the schools in the district changed leaders of their Action Team for Partnerships. The district leaders knew it was important to guide new ATP chairpersons on their responsibilities to ensure their success from the very beginning of the school year.
This year, the New ATP Chair Orientation started with a reflection activity. New Chairs and Co-Chairs considered and discussed why family engagement is important. The district leaders provided the group with current research about the effects of strong family partnerships on school climate and student success. After discussing the “why” of family and community engagement, the group moved on to the “how” of developing effective programs in each school at all school levels.
New chairs reviewed the basics of successful ATPs as described in materials from the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS) including: Who should be on an ATP? How often should the ATP meet? What does a good One-Year Action Plan for Partnerships look like? How can every chairperson plan a good agenda and run an effective ATP meeting? The district leaders and chairpersons discussed some “nitty gritty” topics including how to estimate family engagement funds needed for events and activities. The chairpersons learned about their budgets, stipends, and responsibilities as school leaders. The district leaders created ATP binders for all chairpersons. They also followed up with each new chairperson who could not attend by meeting them, individually, at their school. As the year proceeded, the ATP Chairs were more confident about their responsibilities as leaders of their school-based teams
New ATP Chair Orientation is featured in Promising Partnership Practices 2019.
High School Student Focus Groups
Students’ voices are essential for successful partnership programs at the high school level. Last year, Kennewick added two comprehensive high schools to its local network of partnership schools. A first step was to conduct Student Focus Groups with a large number of students. District leaders wanted to increase teachers’ understanding of students’ perspectives on school, family, and community partnerships.
The ATP of one high school proposed conducting home visits with every incoming 9th grader. Some staff members assumed students would not like to be visited by teachers. District leaders developed a set of questions to discuss with students across grade levels, language groups, and achievement levels in high school. For example, one question asked: Think about the summer before 9th grade. How would your parents have felt if a couple of teachers stopped by your home to welcome you to school, answer your questions, and give you a bag of goodies [items from the school]?
The Student Focus Group convinced the staff that students were open to and welcomed home visits. Teachers, then, were more willing to conduct home visits with incoming 9th graders, especially after hearing about the challenges students faced in adjusting to the transition to high school. As a result, last year, at the first comprehensive high school to join the Kennewick partnership program, just about all teachers participated in conducting home visits with all incoming ninth graders.
