Tennessee State Improvement Grant (TN SIG) 2008 Regional Meeting: Family Component

1. TENNESSEE STATE IMPROVEMENT GRANT (TN SIG) 2008 SIG/SPDG Regional Meeting

2. TN SIG Components • Preschool • School • Family • Higher Education

3. Family Component • Target Audience: Families and School Personnel • Content • Reading Strategies • Family Involvement • Response to Intervention • Literacy and Individual Education Plans (IEP) • Activities • Workshops • Online Course • Products: DVD, Flyers, Toolkit, Newsletters Booklet, Website, etc.

4. Parent Portal Teacher Portal SIG Products

5. Family Component Evolvement • Initially, the SIG conducted workshops for families • Provided families with literacy toolkits • Workshops were conducted on an as-requested basis • Workshops included information for typically-developing children, followed by breakout sessions for those who so desired • Additionally, provided direct service to parents of students with special needs as needed

6. Lessons Learned from the first years of TN SIG • This approach presented challenges with regard to scale up • Expensive ($25 per toolkit) • Time-intensive (sometimes traveled across state for workshop with 10 people attending) • Challenges with regard to sustainability • Lack of self-sustaining infrastructure (beyond the life of the grant) • Did not address the disconnect between schools and families (only reached the few families who usually attended; did not reach those who most need help) • Lack of a follow-up mechanism (one-time, general sessions not most effective method of training/education)

7. HOW DID WE APPROACH SCALE UP? • Train schools/districts to help them organize and conduct their own literacy workshops (developed companion workbook and PowerPoint slides)

8. HOW DID WE APPROACH SCALE UP? • Facilitate school-family communication (help teachers think about family involvement differently) • Provide strategies for schools to works with families and vice versa (strategies workshop and handout)

9. HOW DID WE APPROACH SCALE UP? • Conduct an online class for teachers on involving families (Building Bridges between Family/School) • Ensure that all products are available online at http://sig.cls.utk.edu/ • Work with schools/districts that receive PD from TN SIG component

10. Current Family Professional Development Activities • Family Workshops and Products • RTI: What Families Need To Know • Literacy Is For ALL • Infusing Literacy in the IEP • Unlocking Your Schools Family Involvement Potential • Helping Your Child at Home, Strategies Parents Can Use • Families Helping Children Become Better Readers • Preschool Literacy Guides – English and Spanish

11. Current Family Professional Development Activities School Personnel Workshops and Products • Facilitators’ Guide to Families Helping Children Become Better Readers (for teachers) • Building Bridges between Families and Schools (Online course for teachers) • Engaging Families: Lessons Learned (for teachers) • Unlocking Your School’s Family Involvement Potential (for parents and teachers)

12. Lessons Learned as we scaled up • Difficulties in: • Addressing the needs of all – general education, special education, grade levels, achievement levels • Encouraging attendance by parents whose children really need the information being presented, not just the attendance of families who always come • Changing teachers’ views of family involvement as only ‘in-school” activities and numbers of people who show up at school

13. Lessons Learned as we scaled up • Steps taken to address difficulties: • General sessions, with additional sessions for specific needs as requested • Teacher calls, several reminder notices, duplicate sessions at more than one time/place, providing food/child activities • Working with teachers to find ways to get the information home to parents through communication networks: • A workshop is not only a meeting on a topic held at the school building at a particular time, but also the content of a topic to be viewed, heard, or read at convenient times and varied locations. (Epstein, 2002)

14. Present Challenges • Doing more with less • Finding ways to evaluate Family services • Strengthening our SIG presence by providing family services in schools where SIG consultants are already working with teachers • Getting the word out about what we can offer • Following up with contacts to schedule our family services • Matching our services with schools’ needs

15. Present Challenges • Ensuring parents whose children have special needs know about the workshops and services we offer • Avoiding one-time professional development workshops, but instead providing multiple, comprehensive events on a systemic level • Aligning services offered to families with services offered to school staff. • Working at the system level instead of the individual school level • Taking the time to put all of our products into finished products that will be uploaded to website.

16. QUESTIONS? • Kathy Strunk, Director 615-532-1659 Kathy.Strunk@state.tn.us Connie White, Center for Literacy Studies 865-974-4109 clwhite@utk.edu Reggie Curran, Center for Literacy Studies 865-974-1320 rcurran@utk.edu Chithra Perumal, Evaluator 859-257-6877 Chithra.Perumal@uky.edu