School Community Workshops

  • 1). Family Engagement: Reframing the Vision
  • This interactive workshop is designed to give an overview of the National Policy Forum for Family, School and Community Engagement’s 7 areas for moving to new research based strategies for family and community engagement:
  • Individual Responsibility to Shared Responsibility in Partnership
  • Deficit-Based/Adversarial to Strength-Based and Collaborative
  • Random Acts to Systemic
  • Add on to Integrated
  • Events Driven to Learning and Outcomes Driven
  • Compliance to Ownership and Continuous Improvement
  • One Time Project to Sustained
  • Intended Audience: Students, School Boards, Educational and Community Leaders
  • 2). What Is Family Involvement/Engagement?
  • This introductory workshop provides basic information for all stakeholders to understand family involvement as shared responsibility that is continuous across a child’s life with enduring commitment. The changing roles of parenting and effective involvement strategies that reinforces learning in the multiple settings where children learn—at home, in school, faith-based institutions and the community are discussed.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Teachers, Educational Leaders, Parents, and Community Partners
  • Family Involvement Instruments with Parents and Teachers as Respondents
  • This workshop provides a guide to some of the leading evidenced based tools for measuring parental motivation for involvement and teacher capacity for outreach to school sponsored involvement activities. Because family involvement is a responsibility shared by many individuals in a child’s life, this session provides guidance for educators to review and adapt the leading data collection instruments for your school context from Web-based searches, and Parent Information and Resource Centers (PIRCs).
  • Intended Audience: Students, School Boards, Educational Leaders and Community Partners
  • 3). Fostering Meaningful Family –School Connections in the Urban Context
  • This workshop explores the common challenges and barriers to increasing family involvement that has emerged from research studies on schools situated in the urban school context. Best practices in supporting students from dysfunctional home environments, and first steps in building, strengthening, and sustaining partnerships with family and communities are explored.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Educators, Parents, and Community Partners
  • 4). Schools as Centers of Community: A Case Study
  • Community leaders in St. Paul, Minnesota faced a difficult decision in the early 1990s: On the top of a hill, in a decaying neighborhood, a school building sat dilapidated and abandoned. The area around the school echoed the atmosphere of despair and decay: beset by crime, drug use, and economic deterioration. Families were transient, jobs disappearing, students forced to travel well out of the neighborhood to find a school.
  • This workshop utilizes an inspiring video presentation as a discussion tool for guided dialogue about St. Paul’s collaborative response to the crisis with their “Schools as Centers of Community” model of school planning and design—a model growing increasingly popular across the country. This workshop focuses on the strategy making your school a gathering place – a place of lifelong learning, shared health and fitness facilities, and a host of other services to enhance community and student success.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Parents, Educators, and Community Partners
  • 5). The Discussion: Ground Rules for Facilitating a Community Conversation
  • One of the keys planning and implementing an effective strategy for family and community engagement is to utilize public forums to build bridges that lead to trust, transparency and commitment from all stakeholders. This workshop provides the ground rules for facilitating and sustaining an ongoing community conversation about the shared responsibility of school, family and community involvement.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Educational and Community Leaders
  • Intended Audience: Students, Parents, Educators, and Community Partners
  • 6). New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement Series
  • This workshop examines the growing evidence that family and community connections with schools make a difference in student success. This session provides a synthesis of 51 studies that addressed the impact of family and community involvement on student achievement as well as effective strategies for connecting schools, families, and community.
  • 7). Teacher-Parent Relationship: Using Professional Development to Improve Family and Community Engagement
  • This workshop is designed to provide detailed guidance on how your school can effectively embed family engagement into your professional development, teacher preparation and instructional strategies for consistent school improvement.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Parents, and Educators
  • 8). Systematic Strategies for Engaging Family & Community Partners
  • This workshop provides participants with detailed information on how to embed family and community engagement into a systemic approach to school improvement. In this session we will explore the key concepts that correspond to effective engagement and provide the tools to assess the school and/or district wide changes, and strategies for fostering a systemic approach to engagement that improves student learning.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Parents, Educators, and Community Partners
  • 9).   Technology, Social Media and Marketing Strategies for Effectively Communicating Your Family, School and Community Movement

  • This workshop provides models and support for how schools can engage students and community partners in developing their marketing strategies and tools for their engagement activities. This session will focus heavily on tapping into the innovative advantages of using social media like Instagram, Twitter, Blogging and Youtubes, traditional communication mediums and user-friendly Mac technologies for effective communication to all stakeholders.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Parents, Educators, and Community Partners
  • 10). School/Community Based Law Related Education and Youth Court Engagement
  • This session is a community session geared towards addressing issues of juvenile justice and law related education curriculum as well as alternative strategies for addressing bullying and other incriminating offenses.  Many secondary schools in urban areas are being called “cradle to prison superhighways” because of the alarming numbers of African American youth who are going to juvenile or adult prison rather then college.
  • The objective of this session is to explore pathways for schools to help youth understand their constitutional rights under the law, and role-play as prosecutors, defense attorneys and jurors in real situations. Youth courts (also called teen, peer, and student courts) are programs in which youth sentence their peers for minor delinquent and status offenses and other problem behaviors.
  • Youth Courts can also serve as an impetus for encouraging youth to pursue career paths in law and law enforcement. The youth court concept is very popular in many states, but has yet to fully manifest as a viable alternative that averts non-violent youth from the juvenile justice system in New Jersey.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Parents, Educators, and Community Partners
  • This interactive workshop is designed to give an overview of the National Policy Forum for Family, School and Community Engagement’s 7 areas for moving to new research based strategies for family and community engagement:
  • Individual Responsibility to Shared Responsibility in Partnership
  • Deficit-Based/Adversarial to Strength-Based and Collaborative
  • Random Acts to Systemic
  • Add on to Integrated
  • Events Driven to Learning and Outcomes Driven
  • Compliance to Ownership and Continuous Improvement
  • One Time Project to Sustained
  • Intended Audience: Students, School Boards, Educational and Community Leaders
  • 2). What Is Family Involvement/Engagement?
  • This introductory workshop provides basic information for all stakeholders to understand family involvement as shared responsibility that is continuous across a child’s life with enduring commitment. The changing roles of parenting and effective involvement strategies that reinforces learning in the multiple settings where children learn—at home, in school, faith-based institutions and the community are discussed.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Teachers, Educational Leaders, Parents, and Community Partners
  • Family Involvement Instruments with Parents and Teachers as Respondents
  • This workshop provides a guide to some of the leading evidenced based tools for measuring parental motivation for involvement and teacher capacity for outreach to school sponsored involvement activities. Because family involvement is a responsibility shared by many individuals in a child’s life, this session provides guidance for educators to review and adapt the leading data collection instruments for your school context from Web-based searches, and Parent Information and Resource Centers (PIRCs).
  • Intended Audience: Students, School Boards, Educational Leaders and Community Partners
  • 3). Fostering Meaningful Family –School Connections in the Urban Context
  • This workshop explores the common challenges and barriers to increasing family involvement that has emerged from research studies on schools situated in the urban school context. Best practices in supporting students from dysfunctional home environments, and first steps in building, strengthening, and sustaining partnerships with family and communities are explored.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Educators, Parents, and Community Partners
  • 4). Schools as Centers of Community: A Case Study
  • Community leaders in St. Paul, Minnesota faced a difficult decision in the early 1990s: On the top of a hill, in a decaying neighborhood, a school building sat dilapidated and abandoned. The area around the school echoed the atmosphere of despair and decay: beset by crime, drug use, and economic deterioration. Families were transient, jobs disappearing, students forced to travel well out of the neighborhood to find a school.
  • This workshop utilizes an inspiring video presentation as a discussion tool for guided dialogue about St. Paul’s collaborative response to the crisis with their “Schools as Centers of Community” model of school planning and design—a model growing increasingly popular across the country. This workshop focuses on the strategy making your school a gathering place – a place of lifelong learning, shared health and fitness facilities, and a host of other services to enhance community and student success.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Parents, Educators, and Community Partners
  • 5). The Discussion: Ground Rules for Facilitating a Community Conversation
  • One of the keys planning and implementing an effective strategy for family and community engagement is to utilize public forums to build bridges that lead to trust, transparency and commitment from all stakeholders. This workshop provides the ground rules for facilitating and sustaining an ongoing community conversation about the shared responsibility of school, family and community involvement.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Educational and Community Leaders
  • Intended Audience: Students, Parents, Educators, and Community Partners
  • 6). New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement Series
  • This workshop examines the growing evidence that family and community connections with schools make a difference in student success. This session provides a synthesis of 51 studies that addressed the impact of family and community involvement on student achievement as well as effective strategies for connecting schools, families, and community.
  • 7). Teacher-Parent Relationship: Using Professional Development to Improve Family and Community Engagement
  • This workshop is designed to provide detailed guidance on how your school can effectively embed family engagement into your professional development, teacher preparation and instructional strategies for consistent school improvement.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Parents, and Educators
  • 8). Systematic Strategies for Engaging Family & Community Partners
  • This workshop provides participants with detailed information on how to embed family and community engagement into a systemic approach to school improvement. In this session we will explore the key concepts that correspond to effective engagement and provide to tools to assess the school and/or district wide changes, and strategies for fostering a systemic approach to engagement that improves student learning.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Parents, Educators, and Community Partners
  • 9).   Technology, Social Media and Marketing Strategies for Effectively Communicating Your Family, School and Community Movement

  • This workshop provides models and support for how schools can engage students and community partners in developing their marketing strategies and tools for their engagement activities. This session will focus heavily on tapping into the innovative advantages of using social media like Facebook, Blogging and Youtubes, traditional communication mediums and user-friendly Mac technologies for effective communication to all stakeholders.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Parents, Educators, and Community Partners
  • 10). School/Community Based Law Related Education and Youth Court Engagement
  • This session is a community session geared towards addressing issues of juvenile justice and law related education curriculum as well as alternative strategies for addressing bullying and other incriminating offenses.  Many secondary schools in urban areas are being called “cradle to prison superhighways” because of the alarming numbers of African American youth who are going to juvenile or adult prison rather then college.
  • The objective of this session is to explore pathways for schools to help youth understand their constitutional rights under the law, and role-play as prosecutors, defense attorneys and jurors in real situations. Youth courts (also called teen, peer, and student courts) are programs in which youth sentence their peers for minor delinquent and status offenses and other problem behaviors.
  • Youth Courts can also serve as an impetus for encouraging youth to pursue career paths in law and law enforcement. The youth court concept is very popular in many states, but has yet to fully manifest as a viable alternative that averts non-violent youth from the juvenile justice system in New Jersey.
  • Intended Audience: Students, Parents, Educators, and Community Partners