Academic Parent-Teacher Teams
(APTT)
Parent-Teacher Collaboration To Drive Student Achievement
Bilingual Coordinators Network
November 16, 2012
Maria C. Paredes
Senior Program Associate - WestEd
Today We Will:
 Develop a collective understanding of effective
family engagement
 Look at supporting research
 Learn about Academic Parent-Teacher Teams as a
promising practice and its outcomes to date
Family Engagement is
parent-teacher collaboration to
drive student achievement.
National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group. June 2009
Leveraging Time: Connecting
Home and School Learning
10% School
33% Asleep
57% Away from school
Student time: Six hours and fifteen minutes of instruction 180 days per year
Research Indicates That Family
Engagement Is A Key
Component Of
Effective School Reform
 5 “essential supports”
predicted dramatic school
improvement
 Combined, supports had
greater impact
 Weakness over time in
any area undermined
improvement
% of schools substantially improving in
reading
Family Engagement Matters for
Students and Schools
50%
40%
30%
Weak
20%
10%
0%
Bryk, A.Sebring, P., Allensworth, A., Luppescu, S., & Easton, J. (2010). Organizing schools for improvement: Lessons from
Chicago. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Strong
What Kinds of Family Engagement Lead to Increased
Academic Achievement?
The Research
Meta-analyses find that:




Academic socialization
matters most.
Home-based family
engagement efforts
predict student
achievement.
Communication with
school staff and
participation in schoolbased activities is also
important.
There is conflicting
evidence about
homework help.
APTT Theoretical Framework
 Concerted cultivation—Annette Lareau, 2003
Research suggests that schools have standardized views of the proper role of
parents in schooling. Social class and cultural capital provide parents with
unequal resources to comply with teachers’ requests for participation in student
learning.
 Self-efficacy—Hoover-Dempsey, 1997
Research underscores that parents’ contributions to students’ education are
grounded in large part in their role construction, invitations to participate, and
self-efficacy for involvement.
 High expectations—William Jeynes, 2003, 2005, 2007
A series of three meta-analyses hold that the most influential components of
family engagement are the most subtle, like high expectations, loving and
effective lines of communication, and parental style.
Academic Parent-Teacher Teams:
A Promising Practice
Academic Parent Teacher Teams
 Started in Creighton, Arizona in 2008 as part of district-wide
reform effort
 Repurposes traditional parent-teacher conferences
 Three classroom/group meetings and one individual meeting a
year
 Main components: Sharing data, modeling and practicing
learning activities, setting short-term goals, and developing
classroom networks
 Outcomes on: reading fluency, Mathematics, parent efficacy
 Participating teachers need ~8-10 hours of professional
development support
From Low to High
Parent-Teacher
Conferences
Impact Strategies
Academic
Parent-Teacher
Teams
 30-40 minutes a year
of parent-teacher contact time
 4.25 hours a year of parent-teacher
collaboration time
 25-30 hours of teacher time per year
to prepare and deliver
 Data drives engagement
 Little to no accountability
for teachers and families
 Inconsistent quality from classroom
to classroom
 No measurable outcomes
 Families receive information,
tools, and strategies to support learning
 SMART goals for every student
 High expectations for teachers and families
 Measurable outcomes
Theory of Action
Promote
Parent-teacher
collaboration
Teacher capacity to
engage families
Family capacity to
support learning at
home
Student
achievement
Provide
APTT Model
Produce
Evaluate
Professional
development,
planning time, and
ongoing support for
teachers
Information, tools,
and strategies for
families
Practice time at
home to meet
academic goals
Family
engagement
and support
for student
achievement
Changes in
parent-teacher
communication
and collaboration
Changes in family
dynamics
Changes in student
academic
performance
Achieve
Greater student
learning and
achievement driven
by parent-teacher
collaboration
In The Video
Look for:





Welcome and Icebreaker
Data Review
Modeling of Activities
Practice of Activities and Materials
Setting 60-Day Goals
APTT Video
Activity
In teams, discuss reactions to the APTT video. Include
observations about:
 Data, modeling, materials, practice, and academic
goals
 Implications for parents of English learner students
 Implications for school improvement
APTT Framework
 Three 75-minute team meetings
 One 30-minute individual
APTT Group Meeting Process
•
•
•
•
•
Welcome and Icebreaker
Review of grade-level
foundation skills
Data review
Modeling, materials, and practice
Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals
Foundational Grade-Level Skills
To Anchor Parent-Teacher
Communication and
Collaboration
 Aligned to Common Core Standards
 Promote grade-level success
 Demand home practice
 Are measured regularly through common formative
assessments
 Are the academic currency between parents and
teachers
Background on APTT:
The Creighton Story
 Inner city district
 Nine K-8 schools
 92% Free or reduced lunch
 85% Hispanic
 45% English learners
 65% of parents had less than an 8th grade education
 23% of parents have a GED or high school diploma
 11% of parents started high school but did not finish
 1% of parents have a college degree
Steps Taken at Creighton
 Year 1 = 11 teachers
 Year 2 = 79 teachers
 Year 3 = 187 teachers
 This year = over 210 teachers
 Professional development system for teachers and administrators
 System for Parent Liaison training
 System for APTT teacher planning assistance and coaching
 System of parent workshops focused of student grade-level
learning
 System for evaluation and improvement
The APTT Model To Date:
Districts/Schools in:
 Arizona
 California
 Colorado
 Nebraska
 Nevada
 Washington, DC
2009-2010 = 11 classrooms
2010-2011 = 79 classrooms
2011-2012 = 245 classrooms
2012-2013 = about 1,095 classrooms or about 27,375 children
Professional Development and
Technical Support to Schools
 Orientation and action planning with school leadership team
 Ongoing training, planning support, and coaching for
teachers
 Develop internal expertise
 Parent focus groups
 Data collection, evaluation, and refinement of practice
Data Sources at Creighton
 iSTEEP Student Data Results
 Parent Surveys
 Teacher Interviews
 Teacher Reflections
 Parent Interviews
 Student Interviews
2011-2012 Assessment Outcomes at
Creighton (iSTEEP Scores in nine schools)
NON -APTT STUDENTS – READING (1st-8th) All Schools
FALL
WINTER
Change
FRUSTRATION
28%
INSTRUCTIONAL 52%
MASTERY
20%
18%
53%
29%
-10%
+9%
SPRING
9%
44%
47%
Change
(Fall to Spring)
-19%
+27%
Apparent APTT benefit
for decreasing % of students at frustration level 30% - 19% =11%
Apparent APTT benefit
for increasing % of students at Mastery in Reading 42% - 27% =15%
2011-2012 Assessment Outcomes at
Creighton (ISTEEP Scores in nine schools)
NON-APTT STUDENTS – MATH (1st-8th) All Schools
FALL
WINTER
Change
FRUSTRATION
58%
INSTRUCTIONAL 34%
MASTERY
8%
33%
43%
19%
-25%
+11%
SPRING
22%
50%
29%
Change
(Fall to Spring)
-36%
+21%
Apparent APTT benefit
for decreasing % of students at Frustration in Math 53% - 36% = 17%
Apparent APTT benefit
For increasing students at Mastery Level 36% - 21% = 15%
Assertions: Qualitative Outcomes
(surveys, interviews, and teacher reflections)
 Parent-teacher communication—The academic
information shared with families increased awareness
and facilitated shared effort in the student learning
process.
 Parent engagement—Parents welcomed teachers’
invitations to be involved and to be held to a higher set
of expectations for engagement because coaching
and support were provided.
 Teacher capacity—Teachers’ ability to lead and
motivate their parent classroom communities was a
process of adaptation, time commitment and
preparedness.
25
Assertions: Qualitative Outcomes
(surveys, interviews, and teacher reflections)
 Student achievement—Many students met or exceeded
academic expectations with confidence when parents and
teachers created collaborative structures of support.
 Systematic approach—APTT provided the additional time and
structure teachers needed to share expectations, data,
activities and materials that parents needed to be engaged
in the student learning process.
APTT in Washington, DC with support
from the Flamboyan Foundation
 Seven schools in 2011-2012
 Seventeen schools in 2012-2013
2011-2012 Pilot Results in DC
Grades
DCPS School #1
Pres-5
#
students
243
% of students
receiving a
home visit
73%
Average
APTT
attendance
2011-2012
42%
Daily student
attendance
# of suspensions per
student
DC-CAS Overall
Proficiency *
2010-2011
2011-2012
2010-2011
2011-2012
2010-2011
2011-2012
95.1%
96.9%
21
6
7.8%
10.6%
+1.8%
DCPS School #2
PreK-8
676
36%
93%
97.7%
DCPS School #3
PreS-5
379
62%
54%
92.8%
PCS School #4
PreK-6
310
36%
77%
94.4%
-68%
98.4%
10
96.4%
246
+0.7%
+2.8%
1
81.7%
12
9.6%
-87%
+3.6%
+1.0%
-95%
23.4%
+13.8%
94.7%
60.3%
+0.3%
DCPS school #5
PreS-8
472
11%
59%
93.2%
44%
65%
DCPS Elementary
Average
94.6%
96.8%
+1.0%
Flamboyan Foundation, Washington ,DC
23
40
18.9%
+63%
96.6%
+2.0%
94.0%
61.0%
+0.7%
+3.4%
Partner School
Average
82.7%
300/1739
59/1770
+9.1%
35.6%
-83%
95.0%
1,192/
1,579/
20,214
20,521
+31%
28.0%
41.2%
+5.6%
42.5%
45.4%
+2.9%
Operationalizing Family Engagement
 Create a shared vision of what effective family engagement
looks like
 Adopt a research-based model: APTT
 Provide ongoing professional development and support for
school administrators, teachers and staff
 Integrate FE into the selected core areas of school
improvement
 Build internal expertise for sustainability
 Collect data, evaluate, refine
Metrics
Challenges
 Refocusing the mind set of administrators and teachers
 Perceptions and believes about families
 Fidelity to the model
 Budget allocations
 Teacher professional development
 Practice materials
 Translation services for families
 Childcare
 Time
Potential Funding Sources
 Title I
 Title III
 21st Century
 Homeless
 Migrant
 Early Childhood
 Special Education
These programs
require compliance in
family engagement
but
efforts by schools/districts are
fragmented and lack a
shared vision for
effective family engagement
Questions?
Contact Information
Maria C. Paredes
mparede@wested.org
480.823.9425