Announcing: Authentic Parent Engagement

(A Training-of-Trainers for your group of identified parent professionals)

On July 27-28, 2010, in Lexington, Kentucky, The Center for Parent Leadership will hold its first training of: PIRC staff, GEAR UP staff, foundation/program officers, LEAs, school district personnel, federal program directors, and anyone else who works with parents to improve student achievement!

Your school or district may need to spend their Title I funds in a meaningful way before the end of the fiscal year ... ask how this training may fit into your schools' plan to engage parents and sustain involvement!

This two-day training includes a comprehensive look at:

• linking parent involvement to student achievement
• educator attitudes and practices relating to parent involvement
• developing productive personal relationships between families and educators
• recognizing cultural differences/barriers between families and school personnel
• building families' capacities to be positively involved in schools
• tips, examples, successes and evidence that family engagement is working

The fee is $1,750 per participant, which includes: lodging (newly-renovated downtown Hilton hotel in Lexington), meals, and all materials.  For teams of 3 or more from one organization, the fee drops to $1,600 per person.  (For federal grant recipients, The Center for Parent Leadership will provide a notification on letterhead providing specifics about this discounted rate, which acts as a grant match).

Please contact Molly Toney: mtoney@prichardcommittee.org or

(859) 233-9849 ext 226 for more information or to register

Parent Leadership Institutes are now  planned/implemented in Jackson, Mississippi with Parents for Public Schools (sponsored in part by Hasbro Foundation); in Ft. Lauderdale, FL through the Urban League of Broward County (sponsored by Washington Mutual); in Charlotte, NC with the Charlotte Advocates for Education, and in Wilmington, DE with the Rodel Foundation.

In these locations we spent a year or more helping the local host develop a program similar to our Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership. This is a serious, aggressive advocacy program linked to standards-based reform and aimed at increasing student achievement (for more information regarding the Commonwealth Institute, go to www.cipl.org)

For all clients we help assess community/school needs, conduct workshops for their board and staff, help them decide whether to proceed (this is “their” program, so they must decide) design implementation plans based on their needs and resources, and then help them create and implement the parent leadership program. About 70% of the CIPL curriculum is transferable to other states/locales.  The remaining 30% we help the client design.  In addition, we provide all planning and organizational materials.

The host organization gains the capacity to offer a  program that can be offered to parents repeatedly. Following launch we can, if the host wishes, help evaluate the process, make adjustments, take next steps, and much more.