BY ANDREA TORTORA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON -- Educators from two elementary schools in Cincinnati's West End will visit Covington's James E. Biggs Early Childhood Center and Sixth District School on Wednesday to share ways of improving student performance through parental involvement.
The exchange is part of the Successful Schools Network, of which Hays and Heberle elementaries in the West End are a part.
The network, started by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, provides funding and technical assistance to help schools boost student achievement, foundation member Anne Henderson, said.
"It's often the case that schools in one district don't know about what's going on next door," Ms. Henderson said. "Part of my thinking in preparing to go to the Cincinnati schools was, "What other programs do I know of in their back yard?' "
Ms. Henderson, an education policy consultant with the Center for Law and Education in Washington, D.C., will serve as mediator, bringing Cincinnati teachers, administrators and parents to view and talk with their peers in Covington schools.
Of interest at the Biggs Center is the family resource center, an extension of the school that aids families in a variety of areas often outside school-book education.
At Sixth District, the group will learn how the school started a community education program that helped improve state test scores by 50 percent during the past two years.
Hayes is working to develop its Families Forward program and Heberle started a parent resource center this year.
Ms. Henderson said there are several studies that prove the importance of families in a child's education.
The Center for Families, Communities, Schools and Children's Learning, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, is supporting studies to find the best ways to increase parental involvement in schools. And the Kentucky General Assembly gave the issue support by passing legislation in March that will consider the extent of parental involvement when rating individual schools.
"Evidence is beyond dispute that, when parents are engaged, student achievement is improved and schools get better," she said.
"Every single (student) is capable of learning and achieving at high levels. They just need someone who believes in them and will help them."
