Pasco, Washington
Row 2 (L to R): Amy Phillips, Steve Christensen, Sherry Lancon, Scott Lehrman, Aaron Richardson
First Rate Ideas—Welcome PowerPoint
In Pasco, the district leaders for partnerships gathered good ideas as they attended schools’ monthly ATP meetings. They created PowerPoint presentations to spotlight the good, creative, and effective activities that were reported by schools in each cluster. The PowerPoints were run as a continuous loop at schools’ quarterly cluster meetings. ATP members could ask other team members questions at breaks in the meeting, and consider whether to adopt, adapt, or dismiss the featured activities for their own locations.
The PowerPoints also served to recognize excellent partnership practices at each school. Well-planned cluster meetings are conducted throughout the year, instead of a formal end-of-year meeting. The PowerPoint presentations record and store the year-long accomplishments of each school’s ATP. They remind everyone that all schools are working toward the common goals of engaging all families and promoting the success of all students.
First Rate Ideas—Welcome PowerPoint is featured in Promising Partnership Practices 2017.
Knowledge + Resources = Successful Parent Engagement
Pasco leaders for partnerships brought an expert from the state’s Bilingual Education Advisory Committee to a cluster meeting to support ATPs and advance their understanding about how to engage all parents in their children’s education. They also provided the speaker with information on their work with families in Pasco over the years. Following the presentation, small groups conducted an interesting communication activity. Step 1: Develop a one-minute “elevator speech and invitation” to use with your school’s families. Potential topics included a description of the ATP, benefits of the team, time commitments for joining the team, and ways for parents to learn about team meetings and events. Step 2: Compare your speech with that of ATPs from 2 other schools. Step 3: Commit to engaging at least 3 families in person by the next meeting.
At the next cluster meeting, ATP chairpersons shared how they had implemented the challenge. A high school’s ATP Parent Chair said she ensured there was an ATP information table at an 8th grade transition night. She gave her “elevator speech” and signed up several parents to join the 2017 ATP at the high school. These parents were invited to attend the final ATP meeting at the high school to get a first-hand view of the current ATP in action.
