CRP Family Engagement Read Your Heart Out

PBIS Connection slides

• Family member will be a key player of Tier II/Tier III student success• Students at school = 40 hours a week• 128 Hours = Family/Community

• Family/Community members bring a fresh perspective

• Family/Community bring vital ideas and resources

• Family/Community members can alleviate tasks from staff

Why engage families?

Wisconsin Response to Intervention (RtI)

An organizational framework that guides implementation of a multi-level system of support to achieve behavioral and academic success for all.

Read Your Heart Out

February 2014

Community Building

Whip Around• Name• Position• What do you put your heart

into?• One thing you love about your

work.

Read Your Heart Out~ NGUZO SABA!• Unity• Purpose• Collective Work and Responsibility• Cooperative Economics• Faith• Self Determination• Creativity

Read Your Heart Out ~ Purpose• Time and time again, research supports parental involvement as a viable means of enhancing

children’s academic success. The Instructional Resource Teachers for Cultural Relevance and the Department of Family and Community Engagement coordinated Read Your Heart Out to bring African American community leaders, families, staff, students and neighborhood organizations together to provide inspiration and information to schools and neighborhoods in honor of National African American Parent Involvement Day.

• The main thrust of this event is to encourage and continue to support family engagement. We focus on the home-school connection, starting with reading. The theme of the event is SANKOFA, a word defining the message that we learn from our past to create our future. Schools And Neighborhoods Keep Our Families Alive!

• This is the tenth year that MMSD answered the call to celebrate National African American Parent Involvement Day with Read Your Heart Out. The event originated at Midvale School and has grown to include fifteen additional schools.

• Participation has increased each year, to the tune of over 300 readers and volunteers. Parents have enjoyed performances, a breakfast or luncheon, and most of all a feeling of empowerment at being involved in the education of their children, our future. All families are invited to attend this community event. Most guest readers are African Americans, in honor of the NAAPID celebration. Guest readers represent fraternities, sororities, high school students, the 100 Black Men Organization, Pastors and various community leaders. ALL are invited to attend.

READ YOUR HEART OUT 2014 !!!

The Sankofa Bird looks backward with the egg of the future in her beak, constantly checking as she moves into the future. Read Your Heart Out is a day where thoughtful consideration of the past and future can take place through food, musicality and rhythm, community and family engagement, books and children performances. This programming encourages reflection, particularly generated by works by and about people of African Descent.

SANKOFA

• Students• And• Neighborhoods• Keep• Our• Families• Alive

People to Know About

Central Office Support forRead Your Heart Out

• Read Your Heart Out is a collaborative effort between the Departments of Curriculum and Assessment and Family and Community Engagement.

• In 2014 the IRT’s for Relevance supported Read Your Heart Out through Three professional development sessions for all participating schools

• 1:1 sessions at schools who requested additional support

• Check in visits on Read Your Heart Out Day

• The Department of Curriculum and Assessment supported Read Your Heart Out Day by funding transportation for high school students to read at elementary schools.

• Family and Community Engagement supported Read Your Heart Out through

• Clerical support– Managing the community reader list– Collating surveys

2014 Read Your Heart Out DataSchool Number of Readers Surveys Returned

1. Allis 43 20

2. Falk 56 33

3. Glendale 50 34

4. Gompers 30 9

5. Hawthorne 98 42

6. Huegel 50 0

7. Kennedy 24 0

8. Lakeview 15 14

9. Lapham 39 28

10. Leopold 76 57

11. Lowell 12 0

12. Mendota 91 48

13. Midvale 30 1

14. Schenk 50 27

15. Stephens 19 0

16. Van Hise 60 27

Total 743 340

Feedback from School-Based Coordinators

Things I Learned

• We need to get better directions to our guests getting into our secure door.• We learned that many morning readers (parents) wanted to be part of the celebration that we had

planned for afternoon community readers.• We need to separate books for 4K and Early Childhood classrooms.• Parents love being personally invited to join us at school.• While staff love the day, it can be “too much” at times.• Kids are thrilled to see the school full of African –American adults.• Simple can be powerful.• Teacher personal connection is key.• Having purpose of parent involvement really helped.• The history of National African American Parent Involvement Day.• Parents are confused by is it/is it not NAAPID, AA only.• Staff have confusion too.• The viewpoints of staff about the event.• New ways to encourage and address the celebration of a culture that is under represented in our schools. • Need to put google doc with schedules out earlier for teachers to add to.• More focus on culture of all other times per year.• Parents are eager to come in, some need invite.

Things I Loved• When children sang and drummed for our guests, so proud!• Meeting the parents and community members and chatting with them

about the day. Hearing how excited they were to be there.• How happy and energized everyone was during RYHO day.• The way teachers worked together to bring food, drinks, change

schedules and embrace the day.• How many parents we connected with.• Positive response from staff, welcoming, they loved it!• Meeting and greeting parents and community members.• Looking through and sharing the books with readers, some of whom

were not familiar with such beautifully illustrated and written texts.• Seeing parents happy in the school.• Seeing teachers and children enjoy the day so much.• Principal took it on.• The kids loved it!

Things I Will Change

• We need to figure out how to have our celebration, singing and drumming, for all guests.

• Our schedule. Instead of everyone all day, do half AM and half PM and a lunch in the middle.

• Think about initial flyer to families to make obvious that all parents are invited.

• We will start planning sooner.• More info to teachers from me about how to invite

families.• More Hispanic/Spanish books.

Read Your Heart Out Requests for 2015

• On MMSD calendar.• Supported by three mandatory professional development sessions, on PD calendar.• Optional professional development for teachers and staff on Family and Community

Engagement standards.• Optional training for middle and high school readers on book selection, read aloud

strategies and talking with younger children.• Optional professional development for volunteers with possible connection to SELS.• Additional events to engage families by inviting them to read and celebrate culture

in schools.• Communication plan, including social media: Facebook and Twitter.• Engagement with PTOs.• Electronic surveys.

Thank you to Lisa Kvistad, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning, and Shahanna Baldon, Director of Family and Community Engagement, for supporting this event.

CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE PRACTICES

Key components of culturally responsive practices are:

• teachers who are culturally competent about their students’ cultural beliefs and practices;

• teachers who think of all of their students as capable learners, have high expectations for them, and help the students set short and long term goals for themselves;

• teachers who know each student and draw on the students’ own experiences to help them learn;

• teachers who have a wide variety of teaching strategies and skills to engage the students;

• teachers who can help the students deal with the inequitable treatment of students of color and other underserved populations by helping them become critically conscious and knowledgeable about the students' culture; and

• teachers who can create a bridge between the students’ home and school lives while meeting district and state curricular requirements.

Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings

Watch Everything, Watch Everybody

2014 Parent and Community Member SurveysParents and community members were asked to complete a survey after participating in Read Your Heart Out.

Three-hundred and forty surveys were returned from thirteen school sites.

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

I felt welcome. The event waswell organized.

I felt a sense ofbelonging.

I would like toparticipate in afuture RYHO.

I feelcomfortable

returning to mychild's school forother activities.

Strongly Disgree

Disagree

Agree

Strongly Agree

Kenyatta Moore

• Parent Pledge

• Teacher Pledge

• Epstein Model

3. Allows you to build positive family, community and school

relationships.

4. Read books written and illustrated by African Americans.

5. Exposes you to more of your families allowing you to see and experience diversity and different points of view.

7. Learn how the principles of KWANZAA come alive on READ YOUR HEART OUT DAY!

8. Develop social skills when interacting with new people.

9. Helps students feel a sense of belonging, power, and freedom, while having fun.

10. Opens up the possibility ofmore family engagementopportunities.

1. Make new friendships thatcould last a lifetime. 2. Celebrate UNITY and LOVE OF READING!