Being Connected

It's official, today is the National Day on Writing. So it took THIS to spur me on to write a new blog! This month is also Connected Educator Month. So I thought I would take this opportunity to reflect and WRITE about the importance of being connected.  

I'm going to back up about 4 1/2 months...

At the end of last school year I had the first summer ahead of me in many years that was completely free and clear of any responsibilities. No classes to take, no summer school to teach, no major family obligations, and no house projects!  Honestly, I didn't know what I was going to do. Yes, I could play golf, go on walks, go shopping, or take a trip, but what would I do to challenge myself mentally and educationally?  

Well let me tell you what happened! I was scrolling through my twitter feed and happened upon a tweet from Joe Mazza announcing a change in the way the PT (Parent Teacher) Twitter Chat would be carried out for the upcoming summer. Instead of the typical Twitter chat there would instead be something called PTCamp. The tech tools utilized would include Voxer and Apprenet. The focus for 6 weeks would be a book called Beyond the Bake Sale:  The Essential Guide to Family/School Partnerships by Anne T. Henderson, Karen L. Mapp, Vivian R. Johnson, and Don Davies. Now I know what you're thinking...Shari, you already told us about this in your last blog. You're right, I told you about the book, but what I want to share with you now is how this book study turned in to so much more than a book study.

Yes, I learned a great deal about the importance of family/school partnerships and the integral role this plays in student success. I was able to experience seeing best practices in family/school partnerships through the lens of parents, teachers, specialists, school board members, community learning center directors, administrators, and deputy superintendents. All of this has been incredibly eye-opening and extremely useful as an educator and a future administrator, but the most powerful thing of all for me has been the connections I have made with these unbelievably amazing people. 

If you would have told me when I began this journey last summer that I would strike up friendships and share triumphs, trials and tragedies with a group of people I met through social media I would have said you were silly. Yet that is exactly what happened. I have come to know a group of people who began this same journey at the beginning of last summer. I have followed along with them through their work day with their staff, co-workers, and students, as well as their home life with their family and friends. We have gone on walks together, laughed together, and cried together. I have never met any of them in person, but for many, I feel as if I have known them forever. I have made connections both professionally and personally and have grown tremendously because of them. So I say, "Thank you for these amazing connections and for being beacons of light in my life."

Best PD EVER!: PT Camp 2014

Goooooooooood MORNING PT Campers!

This was a welcome greeting each time we checked our Voxes during a 6 week PD we experienced this summer involving the book, Beyond the Bake Sale:  The Essential Guide to Family/School Partnerships by Anne T. Henderson, Karen L. Mapp, Vivian R. Johnson, and Don Davies.  Over 100 people from all over the world participated.  Participants included teachers, parents, administrators, and specialists.  We learned about and discussed topics such as why partnerships are important, how to build relationships, guidelines for action, and resources and tools. In order to look at the information through a similar lens we broke up into smaller groups during the 5th week in order to determine how we would take what we learned back to our schools, districts, staff, parents, and students.  In other words how would we actually implement some of the ideas we learned about?  This blog shares the ideas of our small group.  We hope it will help other groups similar to this group think about ways to  implement and improve family/school engagement in their districts.

Our small group consisted of Geniene Delahunty; ESL specialist from Northern Kentucky, Shari Hardinger; ECSE Autism Behavior Specialist from Shawnee Mission Kansas, and Sanoe Marfil, Program Associate Director from Wai’anae Hawai’i.  Our roles are a bit different than a teacher or administrator in that we either travel from building to building, work with a range of different age groups/grade levels, or work with a large number of teachers, yet we do not have complete control or say over the buildings we work as an administrator would.  Sanoe’s role is a little different too. She works with public schools and preschools in the development of creating outdoor classrooms that serve as a intergenerational space to teach Hawaiian culture and language.

Geniene shared that implementing learning from this PLN in the elementary building where she worked would be easier since she has history in that building. With a targeted goal of increasing support systems and networks for her EL families she also plans to build staff capacity by increasing confidence in reaching out to EL parents. The middle and high school buildings are new to her as a teacher (not as a parent) so the plan for the first year is to tap into the family engagement activities that currently exist and build relationships. A way to keep accountability will be to keep these goals in conversation at team and staff meetings.

 

Shari shared that implementing learning from this PLN would include helping staff and parents become more familiar with the ECSE center’s website as well as beefing up the center’s website to include more community resources, event announcements, monthly activities and learning themes.  Other areas of implementation would include increasing staff’s knowledge of social media such as Voxer, Twitter, and FaceBook.  Finally, organization/information tools/apps such as Remind and Class Messenger would be introduced to the staff as ways to keep parents more informed and involved in activities and events throughout the school year.

Sanoe shared that her organization serves as a resource for the community.  INPEACE provides information and resources for families that can help in areas like early childhood education, health, post secondary education, land stewardship, financial, legal, and workforce development. As a parent she believes that the schools her children attend could implement more forms of communication and access in the social media arena. Improvement in newsletters, family activities as well as open house could all use some tweaking.