Standard 6 - External Development Leadership
A school executive will design structures and processes that result in community engagement, support, and ownership. Acknowledging that schools no longer reflect but in fact build community, the leader proactively creates with staff opportunities for parents, community and business representatives to participate as “stockholders” in the school such that continued investments of resources and good will are not left to chance.
Element VIa. Parent and Community Involvement and Outreach: The school executive designs structures and processes which result in parent and community engagement, support and ownership for the school.
Element VIa. Parent and Community Involvement and Outreach: The school executive designs structures and processes which result in parent and community engagement, support and ownership for the school.
To increase parental support and engagement at our school, I have taken the opportunity to write a weekly ConnectEd message that goes out to all parents, families, guardians, and staff. These phone calls highlight the past week's events and inform all stakeholders of upcoming events on our calendar.
At Warsaw Elementary, we know that parental involvement is inextricably linked to our increasing student success. Earlier in the year at our first two report card pick ups, we hosted a Family Literacy night and a Family Mathematics Night. Both garnered moderate attendance from parents (~45-50%) - for the most part, parents arrived, grabbed their child's report card and left without participating in the activities we had set up. We, as a Leadership Team, knew we wanted our 3rd report card pick-up night to better. I partnered with our Curriculum Specialist and our 5th grade science teacher to brainstorm ways this event could be phenomenal. The three of us heard that Duke Energy sponsors STEM nights for schools. We contacted them, and they responded by providing us 10 different STEM kits we could use! We gave each grade level an activity to set up in a teacher's classroom (activity assignments pictured directly below to the left) and encouraged students and parents to not only participate in their grade level activity, but also try out all of the STEM activities we had set up. We had a fantastic turn out with nearly 70% of students' parents coming and participating! Students were leaving with built marshmallow towers, portraits they made through magnetic painting, and hand-made parachutes. Directly below to the right is the Duke Energy Planing Guide with instructions for each activity, and centered at the bottom are pictures from our fun event!
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Element VI b. Federal, State, and District Mandates: The school executive designs executive protocols and processes in order to comply with federal, state and district mandates.
Warsaw Elementary is a Title I school whose students are 100% on free and reduced lunch. Federal policy is that any school designated as Title I must hold a "Title I Night" in which we discuss what this status means to our parents and stakeholders. I presented the power point below to over 200 parents in October - I took the opportunity during this presentation to highlight our performance results from the previous year, share our collective excitement for the consolidation of our elementary and middle schools to form a PreK - 8th grade school, and communicate hope in our students and parents.
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Pictures of me presenting our Title 1 Presentation to our Parents and Families at Warsaw Elementary's Title 1 Night and 1st Report Card Pick-Up. |