Parent Involvement and Engagement in the Midwest Child–Parent Center Expansion Program

• In Event: 73.052 - Lessons From the Federal Investing in Innovation (i3) Grants for Building and Sustaining Meaningful Family, School, Community Partnerships

Abstract

Objective: The Midwest Child-Parent Center program (MCPC) is a PreK to 3rd grade (PK-3) program designed to improve low-income children’s school success, in part through enhancing parental involvement in their children’s education. As an innovative and targeted approach to school reform, the MCPC program provides a menu-based system of education and family support services from preschool through third grade.

Theoretical Framework: In MCPC, family engagement strategies involve a 2-generation (parent and child) approach to enhancing the parent and the child’s educational skills. The parent involvement component provides comprehensive services led by a Parent Resource Teacher and School-Community Representative in collaboration with the Head Teacher. These services include multi-faceted activities, events, and opportunities to engage parents and family members, and mobilization of community resources. The intent of the model is to increase parent participation in children’s education by forming a school-family partnership and creating a welcoming culture for families to participate in school workshops/activities. With this in mind, each center offers a parent program reflecting the needs of the family through annual family needs assessments and monthly meetings.

Design & Methods:
Main Question. What is the impact of the MCPC from PK-3, by child, family, and program characteristics?
Sample. With an Investing in Innovation (i3) grant from the United States Department of Education (USDE), implementation of the MCPC began in 24 preschool sites and 2 child care centers across five ethnically diverse school districts in Illinois and Minnesota. In the preschool year (2012-13), 2,345 children were enrolled. Over the course of the five-year period of implementation, over 5,000 children are expected to be served. Furthermore, 1,237 students were enrolled in demographically matched comparison schools. At the start of preschool, 33% of the sample were three-year olds, and 67% were four years old. 68% of the MCPC children and 69% of the comparison children received free lunch.
Methods. To account for responder bias, and to reduce halo effects and self-report bias, we collected data from parents (one survey during the school year), teachers (surveys once in the fall and once in the spring), and Parent Resource Teachers (who collected monthly logs of all parent participation). Through this method, we are able to triangulate data on parent involvement and examine the validity of these items by source.

Results: The implementation of the program has encountered several challenges in Year 1 and 2 – resource limitations, lack of staffing, and full parent buy-in. However, through a strong dual-capacity framework for family-school partnerships, as outlined by the Department of Education, we have embedded a recursive feedback process within the program. This has been integral to overcoming hurdles and successfully forming a strong school-family-community partnership. As a result, parent engagement has been relatively high with consistent improvement over time.

Significance: Our study demonstrates the importance of an adaptive, menu-based system within a structure with recursive feedback. We will share data demonstrating the MCPC as a successful program that increases parent involvement for economically disadvantaged families across ethnically diverse populations.

Authors

• Momoko Hayakawa, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Arthur J. Reynolds, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities