Do you know that Friday, May 4, 2012, is GenTX Day? You’ll likely be seeing people across the state wearing their favorite college T-shirts to show support for college education and for the students of Generation Texas–that is, students who are nearing graduation and getting ready to attend college! An initiative of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, GenTX Day is geared towards supporting students on their path to success in college and careers. Interested in having your community participate in GenTX Day?  Everything you need to plan and promote this day is available on their website.   This offers great partnership possibilities — in fact, if you’re already participating and have developed some partnerships around this event, we’d love to hear about them!

From their press release:

Youth Service America (YSA) is currently accepting nominations for its inaugural YSA List: The 25 Most Powerful and Influential Young People, in celebration of its 25th Anniversary! The “YSA List” will recognize 25 young people (ages 5 to 25) around the world that are making real, large-scale change in five categories:

Health

Education 

Human Service 

Human Rights

Environment 

The “YSA List” will be announced in April 2012, in conjunction with Global Youth Service Day, the largest service event in the world, and the only one dedicated to children and youth.

For additional criteria information, and to nominate a powerful and influential young person, visit http://www.ysa.org/25/list. Nominations will be accepted online through January 31, 2012.

Pre-registration for the Education Open Source Conference ends Monday, January 23. K-12 and postsecondary educators in CTE and workforce training, workforce and economic development partners, and industry leaders and civic partners are invited to attend this 3 day event that focuses on student success through career and workforce training. The event will held be held Feb. 6-8, 2012, in Austin at the Renaissance Hotel. Highlights include the CTE Training Institute and a tour of Manor New Tech High. Check the conference website for more information.

Launched in fall 2007, National Training for Counselors and Mentors (NT4CM) provides free training and support for counselors and mentors who assist students and their families in preparing financially for college. Professional trainers provide comprehensive up-to-date information regarding federal and state student aid programs, scholarship searches, and financial aid fraud. Participants learn how to access free resources such as fact sheets, brochures, and PowerPoint presentations to help them help their students. After the training, participants will receive ongoing information and support.  NT4CM is holding a training in Austin, Texas, December 13th at St. Edward’s University.  Register today.

Participants
NT4CM is available for any individual who advises students and their families on how to fund education beyond high school.

Partners
NT4CM is sponsored by Federal Student Aid, National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs (NCHELP), National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), American School Counselor Association (ASCA), National College Access Network (NCAN), and Council for Opportunity in Education (COE).

Learn about NT4CM

Transitioning to high school can be increasingly challenging for students as they face modern issues including increased academic expectations, accessibility to affordable higher education and increased workforce competition.  Business-education partnerships can play a powerful role in giving students the tools they need to adjust emotionally as well as academically and professionally.

Partnerships across the nation have made an impact by implementing innovative programs that provide students with the support they need, from service learning clubs that promote self-esteem building to advanced learning institutions that prepare students for college curriculum to internship programs that educate students on workforce expectations.

The U.S. Department of Education, in partnership with United Way Worldwide, National PTA, SEDL and the Harvard Family Research Project are hosting a webinar on June 23rd to share innovative practices in districts that can further the mission of college readiness and student success.  The webinar will highlight how schools can help families stay engage in their children’s education during the high school years, and touch on services that offer essential information and assistance for students throughout the college application process.

To register or learn more about the complete webinar series Achieving Excellence and Innovation in Family, School and Community Engagement, click here.

Parents are undeniable a highly influential factor in student achievement and outcomes.  Countless partnerships programs have been designed to engage this key group at district, local, state and even national levels.  In a recent feature in the Harvard Family Research Project, community and student advocate Zaklyah Ansari speaks on her vision for moving parents along the engagement continuum.

Achieving sustainable parent engagement is often challenging for school districts because of the long-term investment in relationship development.  For initiatives to be successful, they must engage parents at different levels.  “…investment in community organizing requires taking time to connect with parents where they are.  It can’t go directly from ‘Hey, how’s Johnny?’ to ‘Let’s go to the State Capitol!’ It usually needs to go from ‘How’s Johnny?’ to ‘Would you like more information on your school?’ to ‘Come to a meeting,” says Ansari.

So how is Ansari able to move parents, with varying concerns and desire to participate, along this continuum?  At the city-wide level, a specially formed collaborative coalition engages parents from the very beginning of the planning process.  By involving parents in improvement projects on a district, city and state level from the start, the coalition is able to give participants a sense of involvement and show them the direct impacts they are having on their children’s quality of education.

Although this approach has been successful, Ansari advocates for a future vision in which all district and city administrators are committed to involving parents in frequent conversations about what is going on in schools.  “We need a city-level office dedicated to real engagement, parent representation and posters in the subway that send a clear message from the mayor and chancellor to families that our voices and input are needed and respected,” says Ansari.

For more information on how to invest in parents and develop effective partnerships around parent engagement, read the full article.

One of the biggest challenges in business partnerships is getting district audiences to realize the potential impact partnerships can have on district goals through funding, volunteers and enhanced community involvement. However, looking to other districts can provide strong backing when lobbying for partnership initiatives.

Round Rock ISD illustrates how school districts can effectively prepare for decreased state funding. Round Rock has invited local businesses, community groups and individuals to help by funding programs. One of the first donations was from Round Rock ISD Trustee Terri Romere, a real estate agent with Keller Williams Realty, (pictured above – second from left) who pledged $5,000 to continue the Read It Forward program and expand it to all 10 middle schools. The donation offers all middle school students the opportunity to take part in a special reading program that impacts students cross all grade levels.

With funding the campus librarian is able to purchase a set number of new books, roughly 100 per campus, with the goal for students to read the book, sign their names inside the book cover and pass it on to a friend to read. The cycle of reading and sharing continues throughout the school year. One of the unique aspects of the program is that the selected book is chosen by all of the middle school librarians and is the same across all campuses. At the end of the year the middle school librarians then pool their resources to provide a celebration for those students who have participated.

In addition to Romere, KDK-Harman Foundation, an Austin-based Community Foundation, has pledged $53,000 to the district’s Education Foundation to be used for the Summer KICKS (Kids Investing in Careers, Knowledge and Skills) program which gets students thinking about careers they may be interested in. The KDK-Harman Foundation exists to support high-quality educational options for low-income families and access to the services, supports and opportunities that are needed to ensure that students succeed in school and are prepared for adult success as productive citizens in our society.

Another Keller Williams Realty agent, Cindy Crawford, has pledged 10 percent of her commissions to the Education Foundation for specific school programs designated by her clients and other companies including Randolph Brooks Federal Credit Union, and service organizations like North Austin Rotary Club and Chaparral Women’s club have already presented grants to help fund the district’s Annual School Supplies Distribution which provides school supplies to every student who qualifies for free and reduced lunch.

For more information on the RRISD Partners in Education Foundation, contact visit the Foundation’s Web site.

Youth Service America’s (YSA’s) Youth Council is partnering with State Farm to support youth across the United States in learning about, remembering and honoring the tenth anniversary of 9/11 through a 9/11 service-learning project.

YSA seeks to improve communities by increasing the number and the diversity of young people age five to twenty-five serving in substantive roles.  The recent 9/11 grant program seeks to realize this mission by helping young people, who may have no first hand memory of 9/11, remember and honor the victims and their families, understand the significance of the event and commit to sustaining our democracy through service.

Youth ages five to twenty-give and teachers/educators working with youth can apply for $500 or $1,000 grants.  Projects should be youth-led and address one of YSA’s 9 for 9/11 lessons.  These lessons give guidance to service-learning organizations on how to engage youth in remembering 9/11 can can be found on the YSA Grant website.

Grant applications are due by Friday, June 17^th.  Grant notification will occur in early July, with implementation taking place July through September.  To learn more about the program, you can visit YSA 9/11 Service-Learning Grants, access YSA’s eligibility quiz or start the online application.  For questions on the grant application process, contact grants@ysa.org.

For the past few years there has been much debate over the role of technology in the classroom.  Do laptops, tablets and mobile phones distract students from absorbing important information and particpating in a meaningful way, or can they enrich classroom content?  The New York Times recently tackled this question in their article Students Speak Up, Silently, in Class.  It highlights many teachers who are proving that technology and social media doesn’t have to be a distractor – in fact, it can empower othewise intimidated students to contribute to classroom discussions.

Teachers from elementary schools to universities are now using Twitter and microblogging platforms to set up ‘backchannels’ in their classes that allow students to participate via real-time digital streams open only to classroom members.  Students can comment, ask questions and even answer each other during the course of classroom discussions.  To keep conversations on track, many instructors host a live feed of the discussion on a projector screen in the classroom.

Nicholas Provenzano, an English teacher at Grosse Pointe South High School near Detroit, said that in a class of 30, only about 12 usually carried the conversation, but up to eight more have popped up in the online backchannel.  This highlights one of the key benefits that is driving educators’ adoption – technologies ability to engage students that would never speak up otherwise.  ”When we have class discussions, I don’t really feel the need to speak up or anything,” said, Justin Lansink, 17. “When you type something down, it’s a lot easier to say what I feel.”

There are still many issues that teachers need to be aware of including the direction of conversation, students’ ability to multi-task and technology’s overall impact on the class dynamic.  However, many educators have proven that technology can give previously silent students a strong voice.  To view more informaiton on how teachers are using online technology in their classrooms, read the full article.

As the publication of the 2011 Powerful Partnership Practices approaches, we’ve featured a few of our outstanding and award winning partners in guest blog posts.  They’ve touched on important partnership themes including volunteerism, partnership maintenance and customer service in school districts.  A recent The Partnership for Innovation (P.I.E) article by Alexandra Ball, the Math Department Head at Oakhurst Academy, touches on another reoccurring partnership theme: how to improve student understanding of abstract concepts.

In her article, Coasting to Success, Ball touches on how she took a creative approach to teaching math students the concept of slope by integrating real-world teaching tools to enhance understanding.  Her lesson strategy leveraged the mathematical concepts that naturally occur in roller coasters to help students understand the previously covered basics of slope: appearance, direction and naming.

In a hands-on experiment, Ball challenged her students to build model roller coasters using a tape measure as the track and a marble as the coaster car.  Students were assigned to groups based on their previous performance level and provided with basic guidelines and questions to answer at the conclusion of their experiment.

“As I watched them build various types of tracks I was amazed at how insightful the responses were.  Even the lower performing  students were able draw conclusions such as, the marble rolled faster because the steeper a negative slope the more gravity is acting on the marble or that roller coasters can’t be made with undefined slopes, vertical lines, because the car will fall off the track every time.  It was amazing to see students so excited about Math and truly understanding why these concepts are important and how they make sense,” said Ball.

At the end of the experiment students were free to build their own designs and experiment with different slopes and levels of force to make their idea roller coaster a reality.  Following the experiment, students’ mastery on unit assessments surpassed the class goal of 80%, reaching an overall mastery level of 88%.  This is an exemplary illustration of how real-life illustrations increase understanding and retention of abstract concepts in the realm of science, technology, engineering and math.