Linking allies: successful school-family-community partnerships : an evaluation of the D.C. Everest School District's Families and Schools Together Program

Abstract

The first purpose of this descriptive study is to examine, through a comprehensive literature review, national programs focused on improving parental participation and developing school-family-community partnerships and components of successful programs. The second purpose of this study is to assess the Family and Schools Together (FAST) program implemented in the D.C. Everest School District and compare the program evaluations of parents from the Southeast Asian (SEA) FAST program with those from the Caucasian FAST program. At the time parent evaluations were completed, the FAST program for Southeast Asian families had been offered for two years at Weston Elementary School. At the same time, the Caucasian FAST Program was in its eighth year at four elementary schools in the D.C. Everest School District. Families were recruited to participate in the program if at least one elementary aged child was considered behind academically, socially, or behaviorally. During the final FAST session, participants were asked to complete a written evaluation of the program. An interpreter was provided for Southeast Asian parents. Because many of the Southeast Asian families did not provide a written response to the open-ended questions, additional information was collected from Southeast Asian FAST families through phone interviews. Information from the survey was collected to assess future directions for the program. The review of the literature presents irrefutable evidence that developing school, family, and community partnerships results in beneficial outcomes by improving school programs and school climate, connecting families with others in the school and in the community, and helping teachers with their work. However, the literature indicates that the primary reason to create partnerships is to help youngsters succeed in school and later in life. An independent samples t-test was conducted on the parent responses on the survey. Using this well-established process to find out whether Southeast Asian parents and Caucasian parents had different opinions about the FAST experience, the findings suggest that Southeast Asian parents were significantly more positive about the impact of the FAST program in all cases where there was a difference between the groups. The information that is found in this study has limited application to other school districts. Since the target groups for the evaluations was families that participated in the FAST program designed by Lynn McDonald, results are meant to be generalized only to other families who participate in the same program.