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Family Engagement for Student Success in Chula Vista

Sun, April 30, 2:15 to 3:45pm, Grand Hyatt San Antonio, Floor: Fourth Floor, Crockett B

Abstract

Presentation Objectives: To share what leaders in the Chula Vista Promise Neighborhood (CVPN) in Chula Vista, CA are learning about the links between family engagement and student behaviors (e.g., academic engagement) and outcomes (e.g., kindergarten readiness, high school graduation). The presentation will describe CVPN’s family engagement strategies and early outcomes as measured by both the federal requirements and locally developed measures for assessing progress toward goals, as well as surface challenges encountered during the first three years of implementation and propose new avenues for research.

Perspective/Theoretical Framework: CVPN’s results-driven approach is based upon research that demonstrates how place, race, and income simultaneously influence the academic, social, and economic outcomes of a child’s life, as well as the lived experience of his or her family. CVPN is working to reimagine ways in which families experience the academic and socioeconomic systems in which they live. Children are served by integrated, high-quality academic, social, and health programs and supports from the cradle to college to career. Schools are supported by intentional family and community engagement and governance of this system, families support their children throughout their academic paths, and contribute to evidence-based programming and policy change.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry: PNs employ a mixed-methods approach to analyzing the effects of the cradle-to-career model. Results presented will focus on the first three years of what is intended to be a longitudinal data set. Utilizing a shared case-management system, including data from the Sweetwater Unified School District, healthcare providers, and social service providers, CVPN analyzes outcome data for every individual receiving services within its geographic footprint, across a framework of 10 results and 15 indicators.

Data sources and evidence: Presentation will focus on relevant results from CVPN’s ongoing quantitative and qualitative tracking of more than 3,300 children and 740 families. Presentation will offer a quantitative review of administrative data from the Sweetwater USD as well as other CVPN partners and a neighborhood survey.

Results: Family engagement data are tracked through a regular neighborhood survey. CVPN has recently completed its most recent survey and results will be available to share for this symposium.
Initial results include:
• The number of kindergarteners who demonstrated at the beginning of the program or school year age-appropriate functioning across multiple domains of early learning nearly doubled from 2014 and 2015.
• The percentage of 4th grade students at or above grade level according to State English/Language Arts assessment improved by more than 15 points between 2013 and 2015.
• Across all high schools in the CVPN footprint, graduation rates increased by 22% from 2013 and 2015.

Scholarly significance of the study: The presentation and underlying research will build on the family engagement literature and assess the challenges and successes that CVPN is having using strategic family engagement to:
• Improve student academic success and social-emotional outcomes, particularly for students of color; and
• Enable parents to be more effective advocates for their children and to support their children’s learning at home.

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