Deborah Keaton, principal at Ridge Christian Academy in Davenport gave a presentation at FLOCS highlighting the work their school has accomplished through Success Partners. She was proud to present the many ways that their school has changed their culture to be more welcoming to their parents. She mentioned specifically hosting Parent Academies to teach parents how to support their child's education through programs like Khan Academy, as well as expanding the times of their parent meetings and conferences to an early morning, an afternoon, and an evening option in order to give more parents the opportunity to attend. In order to illustrate how her school is changing for the better, she told a story about the mother of a student with autism coming in and volunteering to explain to his class what his diagnosis meant and how it would affect him. The mom said, "I want his classmates to know why he might act a certain way because I want him to have friends who understand him." Debbie said she had never before had a parent who felt comfortable coming in and sharing something like that. She credits the work that Ridge Christian has done with Success Partners and their Parent-School Partnership for this powerful positive change in their school culture.

Heather Dowling, principal at Foundations Academies in Sarasota, hosted their first ever Family Fall Festival to kick off the Parent-School Partnership Plan. Over 200 family members attended the festival. 

The staff used a teacher work day to prepare for the festival. Every half hour they had parent meetings, and the parents that attended got an additional 20 tickets for the festival raffle drawings! During the meeting they shared goals from Pre-K and also showed the Teaching and Learning Exchange Parent Video, letting the parents know that during this school year, their conference with the teacher would be done using  the Personal Learning Plan. Heather and her staff developed a one-page Parent Expectations survey from last year's module, and parents could agree or disagree. The data will be compiled and debriefed with the staff. During the debrief, Heather will share her successes and challenges and re-think how this can be even more successful next year and the years to come.

Heather and her staff would like to grow this into a community event, and they hope to see the growth and fruits from their parent-school partnership work.

Please click this link to access the full Parent Expectation survey, which is made to be folded in half, and printed on both sides.