Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE) serves over 20 school districts in its region. RCOE works with the 23rd District Parent Teacher Association (PTA) to increase family engagement in area schools.
Riverside, CA
Left to Right: Mike Barney, Director, Instructional Services, Diana Asseier, Chief Academic Officer, Cynthia Rodriguez, President, 23rd District PTA, Ellen Larson, Consultant, Parent Engagement Leadership Initiative, Melissa Bazanos, Ed.D., Administrator, Instructional Services, Kenneth M. Young, Riverside County Superintendent of Schools
Parent Leadership in Early Childhood and Secondary Schools
Last year, these partners expanded the Parent Engagement Leadership Initiative (PELI) to serve parents in early childhood programs and secondary schools. PELI content is based on the Epstein Framework of Six Types of Involvement, California’s state recommendations for family engagement, and PTA resources. PELI workshops aim to help parent leaders work more effectively on school-based Action Teams for Partnerships (ATPs) to engage all parents in their children’s education.
For the early childhood PELI training, RCOE collaborated with the RC Head Start Policy Council of parent volunteers using Head Start’s expectations for family engagement as the basis for a series of PELI training modules. Sessions at monthly Council meetings helped parents gain knowledge and skills needed to become leaders of family engagement programs at their respective schools.
At the high school level, RCOE and the PTA conducted workshops for members of Action Teams for Partnerships (ATPs) on the framework of Six Types of Involvement: Parenting, Communicating, Volunteering, Learning at Home, Decision Making, Collaborating with the Community, and information on ATPs in high schools. NNPS requires students to serve on high school ATPs. RCOE leaders reported that this is opening opportunities for student leadership and decision making.
Parent Leadership in Early Childhood and Secondary Schools is featured in Promising Partnership Practices 2014.
At Your Service: Improving Parent Engagement in Schools through Customer Service
The mission of Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE) is to ensure the success of all students through extraordinary service, support, and partnerships. Its Parent Engagement Leadership Initiative (PELI) developed At Your Service: Improving Parent Engagement in Schools through Customer Service—a training module focused on the services that school personnel offer to their “customers”— i.e., students, parents, and community partners.
The module includes attention to customer service and the benefits of partnerships for students, families, communities, and schools. At Your Service discusses questions such as: Who are our customers? What does good customer service look like? How welcoming does the school’s main office look? What is the importance of outreach to all families? What are the benefits of parent involvement for students and schools? These are basic questions for establishing a welcoming school climate for all families in every school.
After this information is presented and discussed, the focus turns to assessment, the introduction of the Action Plan for Partnerships, and how to create and provide extraordinary customer service.
