What is the Schoolwide Stakeholder Partner Program?
The focus of the Schoolwide Stakeholder Partner Program is on school-level capacity building to support the development of effective family-school-community partnerships that support student achievement and school improvement. This is a collaborative process between CFEC and the school that is accomplished through several activities:
- A Carolina Family Engagement Center (CFEC) liaison provides high-quality coaching and technical assistance to a schoolwide stakeholder team at each CFEC partner school that is dedicated to family engagement. Partner schools can designate either a new or existing team (such as a committee of the School Improvement Council (SIC) or Title I team) that includes administrators, teachers, parents, and community leaders who reflect the diversity of the school community.
- The schoolwide stakeholder team plans and supports implementation and evaluation of family engagement initiatives across the school, in coordination with existing Title I and other family engagement goals and activities. In doing so, it learns to use a planning tool developed by the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS; Epstein, 2019) to ensure that its work aligns with the school’s existing improvement plan goals.
- In addition, each partner school commits to (1) implementing and evaluating at least one school-wide family engagement practice selected by the stakeholder team to maintain a welcoming environment for all families, and (2) all school personnel completing at least one annual CFEC family engagement professional development session.
Benefits of the Schoolwide Stakeholder Partner Program
- Ongoing technical assistance and coaching in all aspects of family engagement planning, implementation, and evaluation from a highly qualified CFEC liaison using evidence-based and practice-supported approaches, tools, and other resources.
- Enhanced parent-teacher partnerships that help meet academic goals and improve school climate.
- Knowledge, skills, and competencies in evidence-based and practice-supported family engagement strategies that help improve student learning and development.
- Certificate of Completion
- Renewal credits are available to teachers and administrators for annual professional development session.