Gov. Heineman, NASB Recognize Three School Districts
for Parental Involvement Efforts

(Omaha, NE) Gov. Dave Heineman today announced the three school districts chosen as the first recipients of the Nebraska Governor’s Education Initiative Award for Parental Involvement.

The Loup City, Madison, and Papillion-LaVista Public School Districts were recognized for their efforts to engage parents in daily school activities and their child’s education.

“I want to commend these school districts for their commitment to exploring new and creative ways to integrate parents into their daily activities,” Gov. Heineman said. “These districts have gone beyond the traditional parent-teacher conference to develop innovative ways of welcoming parents into their buildings. The end result is that these interactions have helped parents, teachers and administrators develop strong relationships in order to help students accomplish their goals while also encouraging better communication with school district leaders.”

Loup City Public Schools were recognized in the category for school districts with less than 499 students. The district emphasizes parental involvement in early education as a way to help parents support their child’s learning process and establish good communication with families early on. Parents are required to volunteer each month while their child is in pre-school and encouraged to continue volunteering as part of after school or summer school program. Parents are encouraged to spend 20 minutes a day reading to young children, and are always welcome to eat lunch with their student.

This is the third year the Loup City school district involved parents, students, teachers, administrators, and district officials in strategic planning sessions designed to establish goals for the district, which includes the understanding that parents and the school district have an equal responsibility for helping students meet their educational goals.

In the category for districts of 500 to 999 students, Madison Public Schools in northeast Nebraska was honored for activities that include: offering grandparents’ day and family movie nights at schools, working with major employers in the community to post information on school events at work, having translators available at all school activities, and encouraging all the members of a family to participate in school events.

The increased connection to parents has helped Madison schools and teachers resolve challenges by working with parents to address issues impacting individual students.

The Papillion-LaVista School District (PLSD) was chosen from districts with 1,000 students or more. The district was recognized for hosting several events that encourage parents to spend time with students at their school. Parents come to school early to eat breakfast and read with students, enjoy a snack while helping their child practice math, volunteer to walk students to school, or attend literacy nights where parents learn activities they can use at home with children to encourage reading.

PLSD has stressed the importance of parent interaction among new teachers. Providing teachers with the skills to master parent-teacher communication is a major component of the district’s new teacher training program. The district was also recognized for giving teachers and schools flexibility in scheduling parent-teacher conferences. Rather than hosting two evening sessions per year, each teacher devotes 12 hours during the school year to meetings with parents.

The Nebraska Association of School Boards (NASB) joined with the Governor this year to create a new awards program to recognize the work of school districts that encourage parents to get engaged. Each school district receives $500, courtesy of Aramark, a food services company.

Governor’s Award honorees will be recognized Friday during the 2007 NASB/Nebraska Association of School Administrators State Education Conference. Following tomorrow’s award breakfast, district representatives will discuss the impact active parental engagement has on student achievement during a session with conference goers.

School districts were selected by a panel of school board members, superintendents and the head of the Nebraska Parent Involvement and Research Center. The Governor’s parental involvement award is based on criteria developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the National Parent Teacher Association.

In addition to the three 2007 honorees, several other districts were also recognized by the panel for their achievements, including: Bellevue, Crete, Douglas County West, Falls City, and Lincoln Public Schools, School District 145 of Waverly, as well as Schuyler and Westside Community Schools.

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