offered to parents throughout the district. made available

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Project overview

• Project Partners
• Portland Schools Foundation
• PPS Title I Office
• PPS Office of Student, Family and School Support
  

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Online survey

• Offered to parents throughout the District.
• Made available to all schools in five languages.
• Over 1,200 took survey as of mid-April
• 73 schools represented!
• 31 schools had over 10 respondents
• Provides macro view

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Deeper assessments

• Micro view
• 11 elementary schools selected to mirror
  diversity within Portland.
• 15 parent focus groups
• Including several with English Language Learners
  translators
• 10 interviews with principals
• 7 teacher surveys
• 2 teacher focus groups

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Whats in progress
Remember these are initial findings!!

• No Chinese, Vietnamese, or Russian language
  speakers attended any of our parent focus groups.
• Parent surveys completed by hand are
  still being entered.

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What did we look at?

• Five components
• School climate
• Communication
• Learning collaboration
• Volunteering
• Parents as decision makers

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What did we find?

• That we are in many ways profoundly different
  both as individuals and as communities.
• There is no standard profile of a parent or a
  parent community!
• But we also have some things in common similar
  experiences, challenges and desires.

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Events

• School climate
• Almost all of our schools have a number of
  welcoming, family-oriented events
• 10 out 11 in the assessment.
• 90 of the online survey respondents

But
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Events A closer look

• School climate
• Few schools have events that celebrate their
  diversity.
• ELL parents dont always know about the events.
• Flyers are not always translated
• Working parents often feel left out.

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School newsletters

• Communication
• Almost all schools have some kind of newsletter
• Only 1 school out of 11 in the deeper assessment
  translated it completely
• a second translated theirs partially

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Teachers Parents

• Communication
• Quality varies greatly from teacher to teacher.
• Communication gets harder as students move
  through middle high school.
• Parents want reliable, consistent communication
• Parents differ about the type of communication
  that they prefer.
• Many parents want more electronic communication,
  especially as their students get older.

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Languages other than English

• Communication
• Individual schools often handling language
  cultural issues in an isolated manner.
• Principals want more support around language
  cultural issues.
• Language shouldnt be such a barrier.
  We need more systems, more resources.

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Understanding academic expectations

• Learning collaboration
• Some parents feel they have a good understanding
  of academic expectations how they can help.
• But many do not
• In the focus groups, about half did not.
• 22 of the online survey respondents did not.

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Understanding academic expectations
What would be helpful?

• Learning collaboration
• Parents want
• Benchmark information in lay-persons terms.
• To know what topics their children will be
  studying at each grade level conversation
  starters for those topics.
• More specific ways they can help at home.
• More than read to your children.
• Help with math was popular.

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Parent-teacher conferences

• Learning collaboration
• Both parents teachers like them and find them
  helpful.
• Elementary schools work hard to get close to 100
  attendance.
• All elementary school conferences have
  translators present for ELL parents.
• Both parents teachers want a second conference
  in the spring.
• Parents want to hear about both
  benchmarks/standards and social development.
  Often they get one or the other.
• The teacher spent the entire time talking about
  behavior problems.
• Just hearing about benchmarks standards is
  dry. I also want to know how my
  child is doing!

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How could our organizations be more effective?

• Parents as decision makers
• Most of our schools have an active PTA/PTSA/PTO.
• 87 of online respondents
• 7 of 11 schools in the assessment
• Parents would like more communication about what
  parent leadership groups are doing, what their
  role is, and meeting topics.
• ELL parents often were unaware of PTA/PTOs.
• Additionally, lack of translators, coupled with
  an impression the organization was
  designed for English speakers, kept them
  away.

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Site Councils

• Parents as decision makers
• Some schools have functioning Site Councils, many
  do not
• In the assessment, 6 schools had functioning SC
  with the required level of parent representation.
  5 did not.
• 70 of the online respondents indicated their
  schools had an active SC. (10 did not another
  21 did not know.)

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Site Councils
We want more information!

• Parents as decision makers
• At schools with functioning SC, most parents
  didnt know what the SC did.
• Meeting times were often not announced and agenda
  topics almost never.
• Some principals would like help from the
  District.
• We struggled with how to make this work at
  our school. We figured it out, but I wish
  Id had more training.

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Are we partners??

• Parents as decision makers
• Most if not all principals think it is important
  to involve parents in their childrens education.
• For a few, that consists of engaging them in
  their specific childs learning not in being
  partners at making school wide decisions.
• Some principals struggle with how to involve
  parents in decisions because they see limited
  choices.
• There arent that many decisions.
  Curriculum is mandated and resources for
  staff are slim.

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Key observations
Lets start a dialogue

• How can we define parent involvement in a
  meaningful way - that also honors the diversity
  of parents and parent communities in our schools?
• How can we use events to celebrate our diversity
  and reflect who our communities are?
• What support can the District give schools to
  overcome language and cultural barriers?

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Key observations

• Should we have communication standards or plans
  for schools teachers?
• How can we encourage our schools teachers to
  provide more information electronically while not
  leaving behind other parents?
• Can we develop tools that better explain
  benchmarks and report cards?

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Key observations

• How can we make site councils work better for
  parents at all schools and engage more parents?
• Can we develop clearer guidelines around parents
  as decision makers? What decisions can we be a
  part of, and how?

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Our work has only begun

• We will close down the online survey on April
  30th.
• We will finalize our results in May and continue
  conversations with our partners.
• We will issue a final report with
  recommendations.
• Make sure we have your contact information!
• Check our website www.cppsportland.org
• We will continue to work with you on these
  issues!