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Programs & Campaigns

PTA Family-School Partnerships

PTA’s National Standards for Family-School Partnerships are helping more and more students realize their potential every day. The standards serve as a platform for creating programs and practices that promote and strengthen family and community engagement in schools. Instead of maintaining the focus on what schools should do to involve parents, the standards expand the scope to what parents, schools, and communities can do together to support student success.

PTAs play an important role in promoting family engagement in schools and communities. The standards are most effective when they are used to guide the development of PTA family involvement programs, practices, and policies in partnership with school staff and, when possible, community members. Organizing your work according to PTA’s National Standards also helps you reenergize members and refocus everyone on the common goal: student success.

A suite of helpful tools and resources are available online to help you use the standards.

National Standards for Family-School Partnerships Implementation Guide
National Standards Assessment Guide
Family survey
Parent handouts
PowerPoint presentations
PTA Report to the Community (a template for documenting standards-based programs)
E-learning

Program staff also conduct workshops at state and national conventions and are available to provide technical assistance upon request.

Phoebe Apperson Hearst Family-School Partnership Awards

Think your PTA does a good job implementing the standards? If so, consider applying for National PTA’s Phoebe Apperson Hearst Family-School Partnership Awards.
Through these awards, PTAs are recognized for their amazing work in increasing parent involvement in their schools. Each year one PTA is selected for outstanding achievement in putting all of the National Standards for Family-School Partnership into practice. In addition, one PTA is recognized for successfully implementing each of the standards. Three levels of recognition are provided to PTAs:

Outstanding Family-School Partnership Award–One award is given to recognize an outstanding PTA of $2,000.
Family-School Partnership Award of Excellence–One $500 award is given to six local PTAs, each representing the best in one of the six National Standards.
Family-School Partnership Award of Merit–Given to all local PTAs that apply.

Applications are expected to be available online in winter 2010-2011 at www.pta.org/phoebe_apperson_hearst_partnership_award.asp.

PTA Healthy Lifestyles

Does your PTA want to get involved in helping your school serve healthier school lunches or getting kids active because PE has been cut? Your PTA can make a difference! The PTA Healthy Lifestyles Program emphasizes the important role families can play in keeping their children healthy and ready to learn at home and at school. PTAs across the country take action by starting running clubs after school, serving healthy snacks, and planting school gardens, among other fun activities.

Each November, PTAs celebrate PTA Healthy Lifestyles Month to bring attention to health and wellness at their schools! National PTA offers PTA Healthy Lifestyles Grants of up to $1,000 to local PTAs to help fund these events. The grants support PTA efforts to engage schools and families in:

Increasing access to and awareness of healthy foods
Increasing physical activity for students and families
Providing healthier foods in schools
Engaging and training family and community members in promoting physical activity and healthy eating habits\

Resources

Jamie Oliver and PTA’s Toolkit for Parents and Families—Helpful tips to make small changes to eat better and to get active!
Healthy Lifestyles: A Parent’s Guide—Recommendations and resources on physical activity and nutrition, vaccinations, school wellness policies, and more.
PTA Health and Wellness Fact Posters—Tips on a balanced diet for children and youth ages 2–18.
Healthy Fundraisers—Online webinar on ow to change candy fundraisers to more healthy options.

For more information and to access these resources (some in Spanish), go to the Healthy Lifestyles section of the PTA website.

PTA Reflections Program

For more than 40 years, PTA’s Reflections Program has encouraged millions of students across the nation and in American schools overseas to explore their artistic talents Through Reflections, schools and PTAs can showcase the importance of the arts in education, parents can encourage the creativity and lifelong learning of their children, and students can receive recognition for their artistic endeavors. This exclusive PTA program offers great value—and a sense of pride—to the students and school community.

Get Involved

Want to get involved, but don’t know how? You’ll find everything you need to launch a successful Reflections Program at http://www.ptareflections.org/. To get started, consider participating in one of the program’s seven arts categories—dance choreography, film production, literature, musical composition, photography, and the visual arts—and build from there. Appoint a Reflections Chair who can coordinate the program at your school. Build a promotional plan to help get the word out to your school community. Download the Local Arts Chairs’ Guide for more helpful tips.

Resources

National PTA and the Reflections Committee have created a number of resources that are available online for your use:

Reflections Rules in Each Arts Category (English and Spanish)
Student Entry Forms
Posters and Tips to Promote Your Program
Reflections 101 E-Learning
Local and State Arts Chairs’ Guide
Tips on How to Use the Reflections Logo…and much more!

Be sure to contact your state PTA office right away for state rules and deadlines. Make Reflections part of your 2009–2010 year and see what a difference the arts make.

Reflections Theme Search

PTA’s Reflections Program adopts a new theme each year that students use to create their Reflections entries. For 2010-2011, the theme is: “Together We Can.”
National PTA puts out a call each year through the Reflections Theme Search contest to identify the theme for an upcoming year. The student who submits the winning entry receives $100 and his or her theme is presented at the next PTA National Convention. Entries are submitted through state PTA offices. Visit the Reflections Theme Search page for more information.

Mary Lou Anderson Reflections Arts Enhancement Grant Program

The Mary Lou Anderson Reflections Arts Enhancement Grant Program is designed to implement student-centered programs focused on arts education. PTAs receive grants of up to $1,000 through a competitive grant process to establish or enhance arts programs in one or more of the following arts areas: visual arts, photography, music (including dance), and literature (including theater). Applications will be available online in the spring of 2011.

PTA Take Your Family to School Week

Connect parents to their children’s school experiences with PTA Take Your Family to School Week. PTA Take Your Family to School Week is celebrated each February—in the week leading up to PTA Founders Day (February 17)—to pay tribute to PTA’s legacy of building family-school partnerships. This February 7–13, 2010, plan events to welcome families into your school. Invite parents to have lunch with their kids, see what their children are learning and doing in class, chat with teachers and principals, work on school improvement projects, and have a little fun.

For event ideas, Web banners, and a series of posters with tips for family involvement, go to PTA.org/FamilyToSchool. There’s also a PTA membership form, commitment card, and father involvement guide to help you encourage parents to keep coming back throughout the year.

Schools that plan events for this special week are eligible to apply for the $1,897 Awards, whose dollar amount was chosen to match the year PTA was founded. Watch for more information on the award application process later this fall.

PTA Teacher Appreciation Week

PTA established Teacher Appreciation Week in 1984 to say thanks to the awesome women and men who educate our children. These dedicated individuals are there alongside parents working to give children the knowledge and skills they need for a bright future.

Celebrated the first full week in May, PTA Teacher Appreciation Week is your chance to tell teachers—and the entire school staff—just how extraordinary they are. It’s also a launching point for stronger family-school partnerships, a reminder to support teachers throughout the year through cooperation, collaboration, and expressions of appreciation.

PTA offers ideas for public tributes, school events, and tokens of gratitude, with ways to involve parents, students, businesses, and the community at large. There’s also a planning timeline, a sample press release and proclamation, a certificate of appreciation, and colorful posters promoting the week—all available for download through the PTA Teacher Appreciation Virtual Gallery at PTA.org/teachers. The gallery also includes teacher thank-yous from parents and kids and could include yours; visit the gallery to find out how.

Looking for other ways to give your teachers national recognition? PTA’s Thank-A-Teacher group on Facebook is a thriving community. Join other parents, students, and former students in posting words of thanks to your all-time favorite teachers, and share pictures and stories of how your school community supports teachers.

Three for Me

Want an easy way to engage new parents with your PTA? Three for Me asks parents to get involved at home, school and in the community to support their child’s education. Three for Me welcomes all families into the school community, by letting them know that they are valued and whatever their contribution, they can make a difference. The program provides information that helps PTAs and other groups raise awareness, organize volunteers, and meet the needs of school and community. By asking parents to make a small commitment to get engaged, they often go beyond your expectations!

Resources your PTA can access to run this program include the following:

Sample forms and guidelines for an easy start-up
A strategy for organizing activities around the National Standards for Family-School Partnerships
An easy-to use program to increase PTA or other group membership

Visit www.three4me.com for more information.

United We Serve

PTA has partnered with the White House on an important volunteer initiative called United We Serve (http://www.serve.gov/). The campaign asks all Americans to give back to their communities in meaningful ways. PTA members are encouraged to get involved with United We Serve by planning service projects that focus on education (literacy), health, and military families. The PTA Call to Service Toolkit was developed to give step-by-step instructions to plan your service project. Here are a few helpful tips to get you started:

Assess the needs of your community and design a project to meet those needs.
Tie your service project into an existing activity, such as a Back to School night, a PTA Healthy Lifestyles event, or Take Your Family to School Week.
Use the service project as a way to recruit new PTA members by inviting others to join your effort.
Build partnerships with local businesses and community organizations to donate supplies or volunteers to your project.
Get youth involved in planning and implementing the service project. PTA stories submitted through the PTA Call to Service web page will be shared with President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and the Corporation for National and Community Service. To get more information, access the Call to Service Toolkit, and to share your story of service, visit PTA.org/calltoservice.

Urban Family Engagement Initiative

Once the global leader in education, the United States has lost its competitive edge and is slipping behind. Urban communities especially lag behind in educational achievement, a disadvantage that can widen with each generation.

To help close this educational achievement gap in a way that is inclusive of all parents, National PTA has launched its Urban Family Engagement Initiative, a grassroots initiative in 12 U.S. cities: Atlanta, Albuquerque, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, Phoenix, Washington DC, and Philadelphia.

The goals of the initiative are as follows:

Raise awareness among families and increase use of parent involvement materials and resources in the targeted communities
Serve as a catalyst for mobilizing urban parents, caregivers, community stakeholders, and school administrators to discuss and dismantle the barriers that prevent urban parents and caregivers from being more engaged and involved at school
Train parents and caregivers to communicate and collaborate with others to advance the educational achievement of all children, while mentoring other parents and caregivers to do the same

This initiative’s success is dependent upon local leaders and advocates who ensure that urban students, parents, schools, and communities have access to resources and information that enhance academic and lifelong success. Visit PTA.org/urbandevelopment for upcoming events and training opportunities in our initiative cities.