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Door Knocking
Every Home


How to Organize Parents in Struggling Schools
Public School Volunteer Week, April 2012

Each school year, our signature family events - National Parental Involvement Day and Public School Volunteer Week - reach over nine million family members in America’s schools. If each person pledged a minimum of 10 hours of volunteer time it would produce 100 million hours of volunteer service with a $2 billion impact on local public schools!

Why Wait for Superman?


AS A PARENT, GRANDPARENT,  OR CARING ADULT,  I hereby give my pledge of commitment to help our community's children  achieve a truly independent future. My declaration of  responsibility and commitment to my public schools is stated in these five self-evident truths as spoken by President Woodrow Wilson.... more










Beechwood Elementary School's Parent Pledge is one reason for recent academic strides, school leaders say

For two years now, the principal has asked all parents of Beechwood students to sign a Parent Pledge. It's a contract between the school's staff and the parent and outlines the expectations of the student, the parent, and the school and its staff. The pledge includes everything from sending a child to school prepared to attending all conferences and intervention meetings.  More...





Got Budget Cuts?
Get the Toolbox!

All over America parent volunteers are filling roles as secretaries, aides, grant writers, crossing guards and more. By purchasing the Parental Involvement Toolbox, your schools can organize parent responsibility with an effective researched based program - that has national standards, meets district and state mandates and best practices!




Demand Based
Education Reform


We know that 91% of children's time from birth to age 18 is spent outside of school. Genuine education reform in this country cannot take place without involved parents. If we fail to make systematic efforts to engage parents to support public schools, we are clearly fighting an uphill battle with some very unpleasant long-term consequences for this nation.  More...




National Survey Pinpoints Parent Preferences
In School Communication

Parents want more information about their child’s progress in school on a regular basis and definitely want to know if their child is struggling before it is too late to do something about it. They prefer to have it all delivered to them in electronic internet-based sources like email, e-newsletters, district websites, and parent portals.

Those results and more are part of the communication survey reporting on 43,410 responses from 50 school districts in 22 states conducted last spring as part of a communication accountability program of the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA). The survey asked parents and residents about their preferences when it came to content, delivery systems and frequency of communication from their schools.



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High Volunteerism Can Mean
Lower Unemployment Rates


States in which a big share of people volunteer, vote, and participate in other civic events tended to suffer the least-drastic increases in joblessness during the downturn, according to a new report.



Title I, Turnarounds & Restructuring

Six Key Leverage Points
Project Appleseed believes that the “curriculum of the home”—the bundle of attitudes, habits, knowledge, and skills that children acquire through their relationship with their family and that facilitates their school learning - is more predictive of academic learning than the family’s socioeconomic status. Make Project Appleseed a systemic part of your school improvement plan.



Parent Involvement Checklist

Does your school do a good job of reaching out to parents? Use this Checklist below based on the Six Slices of Parental Involvement - our National Standards - to evaluate and improve parent-school partnerships: 

  • Volunteering
  • Parenting
  • Communicating
  • Learning at home
  • Decision Making
  • Collaborating with the community


Choosing A School

Whether parents live in a school district that offers school choice, are changing residences, or have a child entering kindergarten, choosing a school is a complex decision that includes the characteristics of the child, family, and schools.

School quality depends on many characteristics, not all easily measurable, and not all equally important for each individual child or family. Parents may want to consider the following characteristics when evaluating a school.