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Parental Involvement Policy (PIP)

Panama Public Schools

District Wide Comprehensive Plan and Parental Involvement Policy (PIP)

Part I.  General Expectations

The Panama Public School District agrees to implement the following statutory requirements in accordance with Title I, Part A consistent with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act:

• The district will put into operation programs, activities and procedures for the involvement of parents in all of its schools with Title I, Part A programs.  These programs will be in consultation with parents of participating children.
• The district will meet required PIP and will include a school-parent compact.
• The district will incorporate this district wide PIP into its LEA plan.
• The district will provide full opportunities for the participation of parents with limited English proficiency, parents with disabilities and parents of migratory children.  This includes providing information and school reports in an understandable and uniform format and to the extent practicable in a language parents can understand.
• If the LEA plan is not satisfactory to the parents of participating children, the school district will submit any parent comments with the plan when the school district submits the plan to the SDE.
• The district will involve parents of children served in decisions about how the 1 percent funds reserved for parental involvement is spent, and will ensure that not less that 95 percent of the one percent reserved goes directly to the schools.
• The district will be governed by the following statutory definition of parental involvement, and expects that its Title I schools will carry out programs, activities, and procedures in accordance with this definition:
  • Parental involvement means the participation of parents in regular, two-way meaningful communication involving student academic learning and other school activities, including ensuring –
    • That parents play an integral role in assisting their child’s learning;
    • That parents are encouraged to be actively involved in their child’s education at school;
    • That parents are full partners in their child’s education and are included, as appropriate, in decision-making and on advisory committees to assist in the education of their child;
• The district will inform parents and parental organizations of the purpose and existence of the Parental Information and Resource Center in the state.

Part II.  Description of How District Will Implement Required District Wide PIP Components

1.  The district will convene an annual public meeting, in which all parents shall be invited and encouraged to attend, to involve parents in the joint development of its district PIP and in the process of school review and improvement. This meets section 112 and 1116 of the ESEA.
2. The district plan will provide coordination and technical assistance to assist in planning and implementing effective parental involvement activities to improve student academic achievement and school performance.  The technologist of the LEA provides technical assistance.  The district has a parental technology advisory committee and a technology board.
3. The district plan will coordinate and integrate parental involvement strategies in Part A with parental involvement strategies under the Headstart and preschool programs.
4. The district will take the following actions to conduct, with the involvement of parents, an annual evaluation of the content and effectiveness of this parental involvement policy in improving the quality of its Title, I, Part A schools.  At the beginning of the school year, parents and staff will set goals for parental involvement.  The success of the school in achieving these goals will be assessed at the end of the school year.  Suggested criteria for assessment include: 
   1. The number of parents who attend meetings,
   2. The number of parents who volunteer service to the school; and
   3. Parent and staff statements concerning how the results of meetings were used to help improve student achievement as well as parental self improvement.
   4. The following questions will be analyzed:
      1. Does this policy increase parent participation?
      2. What barriers to parent participation still exist and how can they be reduced or removed (including economically disadvantaged, disabled, limited English, limited literacy, or racial and ethnic minority background)?

The school district will use the findings of the evaluation about its PIP and

activities to design and revise its PIP.

5. The district will build the schools’ parent’s capacity for strong parental involvement, in order to ensure effective involvement of parents and to support a partnership among the school involved, parents and the community to improve student academic achievement, through the following activities specifically described below:
   1. The school district will provide assistance to parents of children served by the school district or school in understanding topics such as:  the state’s academic content standards, the state’s student academic achievement standards, the state and local academic assessments including alternative assessments, the requirements of Part A, how to monitor their child’s progress, and how to work with educators.
      1. An Explorer meeting is held with the parents of middle school students.  This meeting focuses on all the above standards to prepare students for high school enrollment and its impact on college enrollment.
      2. The district has an open house and 4 parent teacher conferences at the beginning of the school year.
      3. The elementary school provides a local Parent Teacher Association that meets all the above standards.
   2. The school district will provide materials and training to help parents work with their children to improve their children’s academic achievement and to foster parental involvement by:
      1. Parenting books, cassette tapes, videotapes and parental training workshops are provided to parents;
      2. Adult Education classes to increase parental literacy rates and to provide students with parenting skills needed to be successful in the education and development of their child and provided by the Stigler Lifelong Learning Center; and
      3. The schools provide an internet based learning program for students to raise their academic achievement in compliance with the state academic assessments.  This can be used at home with parents and children working together.
   3. The school district will educate its teachers, personnel and principals in how to reach out to, communicate with and work with parents as equal partners, in the value and utility of contributions of parents and in how to implement and coordinate parent programs and build ties between parents and schools, by providing staff development training and workshops.
   4. The school district will coordinate and integrate parental involvement programs and activities with Head Start and public preschool to conduct activities that encourage and support parents in more fully participating in the education of their children.
      1. Teacher-home interaction is encouraged.
      2. An induction program for the transition from Headstart or preschool to the Kindergarten level is provided.
   5. The district will send information related to the school and parent programs, meetings and other activates to the parents of participating children in an understandable and uniform format, including alternative formats upon request.
      1. The principal of the school site hosting the meetings, programs, or activities will mail notices to each parent informing them of the meeting.
      2. The meetings, programs or activities will be published in the newspaper as a public notice.
      3. The meetings, programs or activities will be posted at the building site and at the other buildings throughout the district.

Part III.  Discretionary District Wide Parental Involvement Policy Components

The school district, in consultation with its parents, chooses to undertake the following to build parents’ capacity for involvement in the school and school system to support their children’s academic achievement:

1. Involving parents in the development of training for teachers, principals and other educators to improve the effectiveness of  that training;
2. Providing necessary literacy training for parents from Title I, Part A funds, if the school district has exhausted all other reasonably available sources of funding for that training;
3. Training parents to enhance the involvement of other parents;
4. In order to maximize parental involvement and participation in their children’s education, arranging school meetings at a variety of times, or conducting in-home conferences between teachers or other educators, who work directly with participating children, with parents who are unable to attend those conferences at school;
5. Adopting and implementing model approaches to improve parental involvement;
6. Establishing a district wide parental advisory council to provide advice on all matters related to parental involvement in Title I, Part A programs; and
7. Providing other reasonable support for parental involvement activities under section 1118 as parents may request.

Part IV.  Parents Right to Know

The parents’ right to know provision requires that two types of communication be provided to parents of students in Title I schools.

Parent notification by district:  A district receiving Title I funds must send a notification to parents, informing them of their right to request information on the qualifications of their child’s teacher.  The information that the district must provide if requested included the following:

1. Whether or not the teacher has met the certification requirement of the state;
2. Whether or not the teacher is teaching under an emergency or other provisional status;
3. The bachelor’s degree major of the teacher and any other graduate certification or degree held by the teacher in the field or discipline of his or her certificate or degree; and
4. Whether or not the child received service from a paraprofessional, and, if so, his or her qualifications.

Parent notification by school:  Additionally, schools receiving federal Title I funds must send parents certain information in a timely manner, in a language that is understandable, to the extent that is feasible.  Title I schools must provide the following:

1. Information on the child’s level of achievement on state assessments and
2. Timely notice that the child has been assigned to or been taught by a teacher who does not meet the highly qualified teacher requirements for four or more consecutive weeks.