1. Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT)
Parent-Teacher Collaboration To Drive Student Achievement
Bilingual Coordinators Network
November 16, 2012
Maria C. Paredes
Senior Program Associate - WestEd

2. Today We Will:
Develop a collective understanding of effective family engagement
Look at supporting research
Learn about Academic Parent-Teacher Teams as a promising practice and its outcomes to date

3. Family Engagement is parent-teacher collaboration to drive student achievement.
National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group. June 2009

4. Leveraging Time: Connecting Home and School Learning
57% Away from school
Student time: Six hours and fifteen minutes of instruction 180 days per year

5. Research Indicates That Family Engagement Is A Key Component Of Effective School Reform

6. Family Engagement Matters for Students and Schools
% of schools substantially improving in reading
5 “essential supports” predicted dramatic school improvement
Combined, supports had greater impact
Weakness over time in any area undermined improvement
9:45
Bryk, A.Sebring, P., Allensworth, A., Luppescu, S., & Easton, J. (2010). Organizing schools for improvement: Lessons from Chicago. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

7. Meta-analyses find that:
What Kinds of Family Engagement Lead to Increased Academic Achievement? The Research
Meta-analyses find that:
Academic socialization matters most.
Home-based family engagement efforts predict student achievement.
Communication with school staff and participation in school- based activities is also important.
There is conflicting evidence about homework help.

8. APTT Theoretical Framework
Concerted cultivation—Annette Lareau, 2003
Research suggests that schools have standardized views of the proper role of parents in schooling. Social class and cultural capital provide parents with unequal resources to comply with teachers’ requests for participation in student learning.
Self-efficacy—Hoover-Dempsey, 1997
Research underscores that parents’ contributions to students’ education are grounded in large part in their role construction, invitations to participate, and self-efficacy for involvement.
High expectations—William Jeynes, 2003, 2005, 2007
A series of three meta-analyses hold that the most influential components of family engagement are the most subtle, like high expectations, loving and effective lines of communication, and parental style.

9. Academic Parent-Teacher Teams: A Promising Practice

10. Academic Parent Teacher Teams
Started in Creighton, Arizona in 2008 as part of district-wide reform effort
Repurposes traditional parent-teacher conferences
Three classroom/group meetings and one individual meeting a year
Main components: Sharing data, modeling and practicing learning activities, setting short-term goals, and developing classroom networks
Outcomes on: reading fluency, Mathematics, parent efficacy
Participating teachers need ~8-10 hours of professional development support

11. From Low to High Impact Strategies
Academic
Parent-Teacher
Teams
Parent-Teacher
Conferences
30-40 minutes a year
of parent-teacher contact time
25-30 hours of teacher time per year
to prepare and deliver
Little to no accountability
for teachers and families
Inconsistent quality from classroom
to classroom
No measurable outcomes
4.25 hours a year of parent-teacher
collaboration time
Data drives engagement
Families receive information,
tools, and strategies to support learning
SMART goals for every student
High expectations for teachers and families
Measurable outcomes

12. Theory of Action

13. In The Video Look for: Welcome and Icebreaker Data Review
Modeling of Activities
Practice of Activities and Materials
Setting 60-Day Goals

14. APTT Video

15. Activity
In teams, discuss reactions to the APTT video. Include observations about:
Data, modeling, materials, practice, and academic goals
Implications for parents of English learner students
Implications for school improvement

16. Modeling, practice and materials
APTT Framework
Personal invitation
Student data
Modeling, practice and materials
Goal setting
Networking
Three 75-minute team meetings
One 30-minute individual
APTT Group Meeting Process
Welcome and Icebreaker
Review of grade-level
foundation skills
Data review
Modeling, materials, and practice
Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals

17. Foundational Grade-Level Skills To Anchor Parent-Teacher Communication and Collaboration
Aligned to Common Core Standards
Promote grade-level success
Demand home practice
Are measured regularly through common formative assessments
Are the academic currency between parents and teachers

18. Background on APTT: The Creighton Story
Inner city district
Nine K-8 schools
92% Free or reduced lunch
85% Hispanic
45% English learners
65% of parents had less than an 8th grade education
23% of parents have a GED or high school diploma
11% of parents started high school but did not finish
1% of parents have a college degree

19. Steps Taken at Creighton
Year 1 = 11 teachers
Year 2 = 79 teachers
Year 3 = 187 teachers
This year = over 210 teachers
Professional development system for teachers and administrators
System for Parent Liaison training
System for APTT teacher planning assistance and coaching
System of parent workshops focused of student grade-level learning
System for evaluation and improvement

20. The APTT Model To Date: Districts/Schools in: Arizona California
Colorado
Nebraska
Nevada
Washington, DC
= 11 classrooms
= 79 classrooms
= 245 classrooms
= about 1,095 classrooms or about 27,375 children

21. Professional Development and Technical Support to Schools
Orientation and action planning with school leadership team
Ongoing training, planning support, and coaching for teachers
Develop internal expertise
Parent focus groups
Data collection, evaluation, and refinement of practice

22. Data Sources at Creighton
iSTEEP Student Data Results
Parent Surveys
Teacher Interviews
Teacher Reflections
Parent Interviews
Student Interviews

23. 2011-2012 Assessment Outcomes at Creighton (iSTEEP Scores in nine schools)
Apparent APTT benefit
for decreasing % of students at frustration level 30% - 19% =11%
Apparent APTT benefit
for increasing % of students at Mastery in Reading 42% - 27% =15%

24. 2011-2012 Assessment Outcomes at Creighton (ISTEEP Scores in nine schools)
Apparent APTT benefit
for decreasing % of students at Frustration in Math 53% - 36% = 17%
Apparent APTT benefit
For increasing students at Mastery Level 36% - 21% = 15%

25. Assertions: Qualitative Outcomes (surveys, interviews, and teacher reflections)
Parent-teacher communication—The academic information shared with families increased awareness and facilitated shared effort in the student learning process.
Parent engagement—Parents welcomed teachers’ invitations to be involved and to be held to a higher set of expectations for engagement because coaching and support were provided.
Teacher capacity—Teachers’ ability to lead and motivate their parent classroom communities was a process of adaptation, time commitment and preparedness.

26. Assertions: Qualitative Outcomes (surveys, interviews, and teacher reflections)
Student achievement—Many students met or exceeded academic expectations with confidence when parents and teachers created collaborative structures of support.
Systematic approach—APTT provided the additional time and structure teachers needed to share expectations, data, activities and materials that parents needed to be engaged in the student learning process.

27. APTT in Washington, DC with support from the Flamboyan Foundation
Seven schools in
Seventeen schools in

28. 2011-2012 Pilot Results in DC Flamboyan Foundation, Washington ,DC
Grades
# students
% of students receiving a home visit
Average APTT attendance
Daily student attendance
# of suspensions per student
DC-CAS Overall Proficiency *
DCPS School #1
Pres-5
243
73%
42%
95.1%
96.9% 21 6
7.8%
10.6%
+1.8%
-68%
+2.8%
DCPS School #2
PreK-8
676
36%
93%
97.7%
98.4% 10 1
81.7%
82.7%
+0.7%
-87%
+1.0%
DCPS School #3
PreS-5
379
62%
54%
92.8%
96.4%
246 12
9.6%
23.4%
+3.6%
-95%
+13.8%
PCS School #4
PreK-6
310
77%
94.4%
94.7%
60.3%
61.0%
+0.3%
DCPS school #5
PreS-8
472
11%
59%
93.2%
96.8% 23 40
18.9%
28.0%
+3.4%
+63%
+9.1%
Partner School Average
44%
65%
94.6%
96.6%
300/1739
59/1770
35.6%
41.2%
+2.0%
-83%
+5.6%
DCPS Elementary Average
94.0%
95.0%
1,192/ 20,214
1,579/ 20,521
42.5%
45.4%
+31%
+2.9%
10:26
Flamboyan Foundation, Washington ,DC

29. Operationalizing Family Engagement
Create a shared vision of what effective family engagement looks like
Adopt a research-based model: APTT
Provide ongoing professional development and support for school administrators, teachers and staff
Integrate FE into the selected core areas of school improvement
Build internal expertise for sustainability
Collect data, evaluate, refine

30. Metrics

31. Challenges Refocusing the mind set of administrators and teachers
Perceptions and believes about families
Fidelity to the model
Budget allocations
Teacher professional development
Practice materials
Translation services for families
Childcare
Time

32. Potential Funding Sources
Title I
Title III
21st Century
Homeless
Migrant
Early Childhood
Special Education
These programs
require compliance in
family engagement
but
efforts by schools/districts are
fragmented and lack a
shared vision for
effective family engagement

33. Questions?

34. Contact Information
Maria C. Paredes