1. School/community based action Review by Njeza Mrse Montenegro/Becici, April, 2010 Project: Advancing Educational Inclusion and Quality in South East Europe / OSI ESP

2. 2 School/community based action Purposesupport stakeholder participationin advancing educational inclusion and quality Purpose – initiate and support stakeholder participation (school students & parents) in advancing educational inclusion and quality at school and/or community level Objective participatory action initiatives Objective – help schools initiate, design & implement participatory action initiatives at school and/or community level Participants - Participants - 7 SEE countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia

3. 3 Approach & Outputs Approach Approach (philosophy): Education as a process of personal & social change Levels of expected outputs: Levels of expected outputs: 1. Intervention steps taken by country teams (ways of initiating & facilitating School Actions) 2. Research results (stakeholders needs & new understanding of the problem) 3. Participatory action taken (design & results achieved)

4. 4 Implementation Steps 1. Choose generative theme & pose a problem/s that reflects main stakeholders concerns. 2. Select school/s & local partner/s that should be involved and establish parents-students- teachers working group (or local network). 3. Design/realize group session/s to explore the problem & discuss possible actions to address it. 4. Facilitate participatory planning and development of the school/community action. 5. Support implementation of the action – provide financial and technical assistance to implementing teams (if and when needed).

5. 5 Problems addressed by Actions 2 generative themes 2 generative themes: lack of parent- teachers communication lack of parents participation in a school life 3 key problems 3 key problems (main stakeholders concerns): schools have no strategy for communication with parents existence of different barriers to efficient functioning of school-family partnership (caused by the socio-economic and cultural circumstances of the transition period) there are no innovative models that enchance parents' participation.

6. 6 Review of School Actions (1) Country (contact person) Action Title & ObjectiveMain Outputs (techniques / procedures) 1 Bosna i Herzegovina Ivona Celebicic ivona@promente.org Parents can be a part of school Help the school to focus, through its own activity plan, on establishing and improving partnership with parents. 1. Focus groups (parents, teachers & sch management) 2. Joint parent-teacher school conference and joint outings. 2 Kosovo Dukagjin Pupovci dpupovci@kec-ks.org Advancing communication with parents in Kosovo schools Introducing a methodology for organizing structured individual teachers-parents meetings. 1. Methodology for individual meetings with parents. 2. Comprehensive survey report on usefulness of new methodology. 3 Macedonia Suzana Kirandziska skiran@soros.org.mk Improving the school-parents collaboration Suppotr parent-school collaboration so to result in frequent parents involvement in school work. 1. Small grants for School- Community actions (FOSIM) 2. Sch web site as an excellent way of sharing experiences. 4 Moldova Rima Bezede rbezede@prodidactic a.md Lets help our children by communicating & acting together Help edu stakeholders identify & go beyond the existent barriers to school- family partnership. 1. Parents Club Invitation to Education 2. The event of collecting funds to ensure sustainability of Parents Club.

7. 7 Review of School Actions (2) Country (contact person) Action Title & ObjectiveMain Outputs (new techniques / procedures) 5 Montenegro Krivokapic Tamara tamara.krivokapic@fo rum-mne.com Open days for parents in three elementary schools Advance teacher-parents communication by providing model for parental participation enhancement. 1. Open Day as completely different model of parents participation. 2. Brochure of good practice published. 6 Romania Daniela Nita dnita@cedu.ro News from Home Help parents that work abroad become an active part of their children (school) life by discovering efficient communication method and parents involvement strategy. 1. New, original view & strategy of parent participation & communication with the school. 2. New method to communicate with parents confirmed working (and not costly). 7 Serbia Jelena Vranjesevic jekac@eunet.rs Building partnership in the classroom Explore possibilities for parents– teachers cooperation that would foster parents participation in various aspects of school life. 1. Focus groups discussions design. 2. Making evaluation plan (how to inform parents & teachers, evaluate their interest and make the action more sustainable).

8. 8 Example of school action (1) Country: Romania Responsible person: Daniela Nita (e-mail: dnita@cedu.ro )dnita@cedu.ro Action title:News from Home Description of the action: Objective: make the parents that work abroad to be an active part of their children (school) life by discovering an efficient communication method and an involvement strategy of the parents, presenting it to the Arges County School Inspectorate for piloting and to the Ministry of Education, Research and Innovation. Target groups: the action involved 22 parents, 28 children, 23 teachers (including schools psychologists and directors), 2 representatives from Childs Protection Department from Pitesti City Hall, 1 representative from School Inspectorate. The main elements/steps: 1. parents database construction 2. focus group discussion with children and questionnaire survey for parents & tutors 3. support from a Specialized Counseling Cabinet 4. creating the discussion forum between parents, and between school & parents 5. sending letters and e-mails narrative reports of the child activities, recommendation & conclusions from the teachers, or other persons from the school 6. keeping an archive with all the correspondence 7. organizing a one day trip for the children involved 8. organizing a closing seminar with parents or tutors, teachers and other actors involved and media representatives.

9. 9 Example of school action (2) The main results: 1. A new, original view of the parent participation and communication with the school was presented - school management now has a new method to communicate with parents, a method that was confirmed working (and not costly). 2. Children involved in the action improved their grades and opened their perspectives becoming aware that their problem is not entirely their own - the feeling of security increased. 3. Parents had increased their trust in schools actions and they are more confident to address requests to the school. They saw a practical role of schools psychologis. 4. Parents received wanted information of their children and children always agreed to what had been written. Techniques and/or procedures developed: New strategy for parent participation and method to communicate with parents. Along with the local media we disseminate the results of the action, receiving positive feed-back from community members, other parents, other teachers and members from the Inspectorate of Arges county.

10. 10 Impacts Teachers understood the importance of parents participation and cooperation with parents for the best interest of children explored and tried various ways of cooperation with parents expanded their professional competencies.Parents understood the importance of cooperation and their role in this process that support the best interest of their children learned how to cooperate & share responsibilities with teachers took more (pro)active approach in the process of cooperation and explored different ways of participation were actively involved in different aspects of school life.Students improved their school performances and grades opened their perspectives understanding that their problem is not entirely their own increased their feeling of security becoming aware that somebody is paying attention to them.

11. 11 Conclusions & Recommendations Provided by Daniela Nita (country team coordinator, CEDU, Romania) It is absolutely necessary to set a program of written information to parents. It is possible to design a procedure that sets rules for correspondence with parents. Parents should never be made feel guilty. This triggers defense mechanisms and results in absence of parents from schools life. Parents should be seen as key partners in solving potential problems with their children. Basic step is acceptance of every parent - construction of parents–school relationship depends on this. It is essential that someone trained do the communication with parents.