Families & Communities

Actions Families Can Take

By working together with parents, neighbors, students and your school, you can make a difference in strengthening school holding power. The strength of neighborhood public schools and the community is intertwined. Strong schools value their students and the involvement of others. When parents, families and others are actively involved as partners with their schools, students thrive and the community itself is made stronger.

Resources on connecting with other parents

School Holding Power – Communities in Action

Get Data on Your Texas High School
Designed around IDRA’s Quality Schools Action Framework,™ the bilingual (English-Spanish) portal helps educators and community members find out how well their high school campus is preparing and graduating students, what factors may be weakening school holding power, and what they can do together to address them.
http://www.idra.org/OurSchool

IDRA’s Dr. Robledo Montecel on Univision about Schools Engaging Parents
As part of Univision’s education campaign, “Es el Momento” (The Moment is Now), Univision aired “Estudios Superiores a tu Alcance” (Postsecondary Studies Within Reach) on March 24, 2012. This one-hour education special highlighted the difficulties Hispanic Americans face at closing the higher education gap and identified resources available for students to complete graduate studies while controlling costs.  IDRA President Dr. Robledo Montecel discusses how parents can advocate for the education of their children (about five minutes into this clip). The program was hosted by Emmy-Award winner Teresa Rodriguez and included a discussion with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on the process to achieving a post-higher education.

Expressions of Effective Parent and Community Engagement – IDRA Classnotes Podcast Episode 100
For this 100th episode of Classnotes, Aurelio Montemayor, M.Ed., Linda Cantu, Ph.D., Josie Cortez, M.A., and Bradley Scott, Ph.D., give examples of effective parent and community engagement and share important insights that lead to successful engagement.

Community PTAs Growing in South Texas – IDRA Classnotes Podcast Episode 99
Aurelio Montemayor, M.Ed., an IDRA senior education associate, describes how groups in three communities have formed their own community PTAs (or PTA Comunitarios) to transform education in their neighborhoods.

Community Leaders Discuss How PTA Comunitarios Give Voice to Parents in their Children’s Education, interview in which four leaders of the nation’s first PTA Comunitario talk about their experience and passion for community engagement in education. Read the condensed version translated into English. The full interview is available in Spanish through the IDRA Classnotes Podcast.

NCLB Action Briefs – a project of Public Education Network (PEN) and the National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE). Designed to keep community and parent leaders up to date on various provisions of NCLB. Topics include: NCLB overview; Title I overview; Title II teacher and principal preparation; teacher quality; paraprofessional quality; parents’ right to know; standards and assessment; community and parent decision making: A review; state accountability system and adequate yearly progress (AYP); public school choice for schools identified as low performing; LEP requirements; supplemental educational services; district and school parent involvement policies;  school-parent compacts; state and local report cards; students who are mobile: transient, homeless and migrant; relationship of IDEA and NCLB; transferability/block granting of funds; and military access to secondary school students.

Annual IDRA La Semana del Niño Parent Institute
This bilingual conference offers families, school district personnel and community groups an opportunity to get current information and materials on IDRA’s nationally-recognized, research-based model of parent leadership in education and to learn strategies for effective family engagement. Many sessions are presented by parents who have participated in IDRA’s leadership in education series.  The next institute will take place in San Antonio on April 25, 2013. Registration information will be available soon.

WOW! Workshop on Workshops, Learn the art of planning and conducting workshops (bilingual, English/Spanish) – see materials, get info about training


IDRA Classnotes Podcast – conversational audio program with episodes on parent engagement

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