Webcast Details
Aired on: February 27th, 2013
3:30–4:30 p.m. (ET)
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Our Guest(s) This Week
Robert Rivera
Rivera is the Assistant Director of Hamline University’s Center for Excellence in Urban Teaching. He works effectively with (CEUT) partnerships, which include schools/districts, organizations, and the communities. Robert also provides parents with training on how to be advocates for their students as well as practical strategies to support the children’s achievements. His background in urban education and classroom management experience helps him support both tutor and parent mentors. His history as a first generation urban student in Los Angeles, CA, gives him great insight into the plight of our urban students in the Twin Cities.
Jean Strait
Dr. Jean Strait, Director of the Center for Excellence in Urban Teaching, brings a wealth of firsthand experience in the classroom—having taught reading, literacy, and educational psychology in higher education for the past 20 years. She has also developed and led urban teacher programs with service-learning components at two-year and four-year colleges throughout the Twin Cities. In addition, Dr. Strait has created programs to train adults in the Dakota Language and has helped refugee teachers become licensed in Minnesota. “Literacy is at the heart of all my teaching,” she says.
This Week's Topic
Family participation in education is a much more significant predictive of students’ academic success than family socioeconomic status. The more intensely parents are involved, the more beneficial the achievement effects. The more parents participate in schooling, in a sustained way, at every level—in advocacy, decision-making and oversight roles, as fund-raisers and boosters, as volunteers and paraprofessionals, and as home teachers—the better for student achievement. Find out about ways your school can overcome challenges and enhance parent engagement.
- Learn why family and community engagement are so important
- Find out about models and frameworks of parental involvement
Resources:
A Blueprint for Reform: The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act 
. (2010). U.S. Department of Education.
A Solid Foundation for Student Success . (2012).
Center for Excellence in Urban Teaching. (2013).
Family – School Partnership Framework: A guide for schools and families. http://www.familyschool.org.au/pdf/framework.pdf. (2012).
(2012). Family and Community Knowledge Systems: New Tools for Engagement .
(2011). Handbook on Family and Community Engagement .
Harvard Family Research Project. (2013).
Parent Engagement: Strategies for Involving Parents in School Health. http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/AdolescentHealth/pdf/parent_engagement_strategies.pdf. (2012).
(2009). Parent involvement in school – Engaging immigrant parents .
School Community Network. (2013).
Supporting Families and Communities: Reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act . (2010). U.S. Department of Education.