Georgia SIG 200407

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• Georgia SIG 2004-07
• Literacy
• SIG/SPDG Regional Meeting
• November 1, 2007

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Goal Increased Reading Achievement

• Expanded Reading First
• Training and support activities for general and
  special education teachers who teach low
  incidence (Deaf/HOH,OI, VI, Mod./Severe)
• Professional development courses for teachers of
  students with mild disabilities

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Results

• Professional Development (Struggling Reader
  Courses) Increased emphasis on
• providing services to SWD in general education
  classrooms
• cross-training within DOE to better connect TA
• developing frameworks for administrators and
  school teams to use in examining interventions
  that are research-based

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Low Incidence

• Academy for students with VI
• Deaf/HOH diagnostic immersion weekends,
  development of literacy course and sign language
  video-book series
• OI Reading Academies, onsite visits,
  collaboration with IHES, website and distribution
  of Strategies Manual/CD

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Low Incidence (cont.)

• Moderate/Severe improved communication skills,
  teachers on special assignment produced adapted
  materials, lessons aligned w/GA Performance
  Standards
• Speech Language fostered collaboration among SLPs
  and teachers in KG or 3rd grade to target
  phonemic awareness and vocabulary skills

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Content Implementation

• Piloting
• Scaling-up
• Parent involvement
• Role of leadership, local team buy-in, factors
  influencing change

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Family Engagement research showed to increase
literacy in Georgia it would mean including
families in after school reading activities
promoting books in the home and making families
understand the importance of reading.
SIG participated in activities to train and
target parent leaders among the subgroups
raising students at risk to build capacity in
family engagement!
The National Network of Partnerships, Johns
Hopkins and the Family Information Network of
Educators, Harvard University
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SIG Findings on Family Engagement

• Families need training to assist in both
  readiness and reading development of their
  children
• Resistance of participating by some families is
  not due to lack of interest but lack of reading
  competency.
• Parents can encourage and assist in reading
  development without being readers themselves
• The community working on increasing literacy
  together is more effective than separately.
• Cultural differences, including those caused by
  poverty, most be considered and addressed.

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SIG Family Community Partners Working to Increase
Achievement

• Almost 70 parent leaders in the GA Parent Mentor
  Partnership
• The GA Parent Leadership Coalition, (PLC) started
  by the GaDOE parent liaison with the assistance
  of the Southeast Regional Resource System
  consisting of 12 major education/advocacy groups
  including the Division for Early Childcare and
  Learning and the state PTA
• 25 community navigation teams led by the PLC

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Year one of the SIG

• The GA Parent Mentor Partnership sponsored a
  day-long symposium in Macon with parent leaders
  across the state, administrators and parent
  mentors. More than 200 people attended to learn
  about Reading First strategies and worked in
  local teams to come up with sustainable plans to
  go back to their communities. Parenting became
  a focus of increasing literacy.

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Family Leaders in partnership with the SIG
developed local sustainable activities guided by
the National Parent Engagement Standards with 90
percent of those activities targeting reading at
every age level, particularly up to 8 years of
age.
An important component was collaborating with
Title I. Parent Mentor Pam Madison from Madison
County, north Georgia, shares comments with her
Title I coordinator and US Senator Johnnie
Isaacson.
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Parent Mentors found ways to increase student
reading by offering opportunities for parents to
learn to be a better parents of a reader. This
always did not mean the parent could read him or
herself.

• Parent Meetings at libraries that involved local
  High School Clubs to work with students while the
  parent mentor conducted a meeting with families
  on a popular issue such as behavior strategies or
  Medicaid waivers.
• Participating in book distributioncampaign where
  free books would go home.
• Setting up audio book exchanges with tape
  recorders so families could listen together and
  follow along with the book.

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More Example of Activities by Parent Mentors and
other Parent Leaders around Reading

• 100 Easy Steps to Read Parent Mentor Holly
  Markert in Bibb County, an urban community in
  Mid-Georgia, trained about 8 mothers how to use
  this hands on book.
• The mothers worked with their children everyday
  or as much as possible. Ms. Markert followed up
  each week and encouraged the parents, many who
  did not believe they were capable of teaching
  their children because many did not finish high
  school.
• The majority of the students increased test
  scores the following year. Several of the
  families moved and did not leave a forwarding
  address which can be typical among families
  living in poverty.

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More Examples..

• Increasing a childs reading can mean
  encouraging a learning environment in the home ,
  according to Michelle White, a parent mentor in
  Trion City, a rural community North GA.
• Ms. White targeted 12 students with disabilities
  who failed the state achievement test in 2006 and
  also were Title I eligible and in a Needs
  Improvement grade school.
• Launching a parent education program to
  emphasize the importance of reading and school
  achievement, the families began encouraging
  reading at home and setting regular bed times and
  turning off the television. The parent mentor
  also partnered with the 12 students local child
  care centers to increase reading activities.
• The 12 students passed the state achievement
• test in May, 2007.

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Another .
Richmond County Parent Mentor Grace Bagley found
both students and parents volunteers at her
homework club in an Augusta inner city federal
housing development got a lot more interested if
books if she read them books about Black History.
She also brought in authors and speakers on
various aspects of African American Culture to
increase the excitement over reading. The local
grade school principal gives the parent mentor
full credit for getting the school off the AYP
list because of the increased test scores of
these 40 children.
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A major part of a childs education is the
Parenting Standard
C.A.F.E. Circles of Adults Focusing on Education
Parent Leaders in the Video
Parent leaders assisted the GaDOE to develop
a teaching video on the Parent Standards
developed by the National Network of Partnership
at Johns Hopkins University under the direction
of Joyce Epstein, PhD. The main message is for
parents to find ways to encourage reading and
math after 3 pm.
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Supplementary Education Services

• Parent Mentors found many parents did not do the
  follow up needed for reading because they too
  could not read.
• They partnered with Title I coordinators across
  the state to increase tutoring opportunities for
  eligible students.
• It often took visiting homes and explaining one
  on one to families for the commitment to the
  tutoring services available.

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Cultural Needs

• The SIG targeted a county with 500 students with
  disabilities who also speak English as a second
  language. The parent outreach liaison first began
  English classes for parents and incorporated
  special education language into the lessons.
• Parents could not attend the classes unless they
  agreed to volunteer in the schools. For some, it
  was the first time to step into a school
  building.
• Patricia Davalos, SIG Parent Latino Liaisons
  qualitative data
• showed families understanding
• the importance of their role in education to be
  active participants
• and not on the side lines.

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SIG TARGETED FAMILIES WITH SPANISH AS THE FIRST
LANGUAGE

• Finding some parents could not read Spanish as
  well as English, the SIG pilot in Hall County
  also included training as reading coaches for the
  siblings of the Latino students with
  disabilities in five targeted grade schools on
  Needs Improvement status. The community provided
  incentives such as tickets to a local amusement
  park to the siblings. This activity as well as
  several other Family SIG pilots in the five
  schools was put into the systems Comprehensive
  Improvement Plan. The SIG activities were part of
  the improvement plan credited for increasing
  student achievement among some of the students in
  this group and decreased absenteeism.The pilots
  are going statewide in the SPDG.

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FOCUSED MONITORINGParents on Focused Monitoring
Teams assisted educators in understanding the
face of literacy in local communities. Parent
leaders reminded school systems of the need to
increase adult education opportunities in places
other than schools where some parents are not
comfortable and also with needed supports such as
childcare. They also encouraged systems being
monitored on reading to think out of the box and
find ways to allow these parents to participate
without being readers themselves.

• Shirley Daniels, Mitchell County Parent Mentor
• and Tracy Rogers, Seminal County Parent Mentor
  assist on teams in monitoring systems similar to
  their own. They come from two South
• Georgia rural systems
• with less that
• 300 IEPs each and the challenge of escalating
• Unemployment, drop out and poverty levels.

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Ms Davalos, also is member of focused monitoring,
and runs focus groups of Spanish speaking parents
directed toward achievement of SWD in math and/or
reading during the Focused Monitoring
process.As a member of the last SIG team, she
found Spanish-Speaking parents needed a voice
during during Focused Monitoring and other public
meetings concerning school issues. She said many
of her families would not speak out in public
considering it bad manners and needed a different
arena.
Patricia Davalos, now SPDG state Latino Outreach
Liaison
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Management

• Site identification (equitable distribution
  issues)
• Staffing/resource allocation (timely use of
  funds)
• Relationship building

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Management Specifics

• Collaboration with Reading First (had sites
  chosen plus requirement to do professional
  learning for all K-12)
• Worked through GLRS as they were partners in
  first SIG
• Trained 30 trainers (experts in progress
  monitoring, etc)
• Used Texas Struggling Reader Materials

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Specifics (cont.)

• Intense collaboration/same mindset/always there
• Initial model was one of training not so much
  support
• SIG Staff contact person w/Reading First

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Once More-Content Implementation

• Piloting
• Scaling-up
• Parent involvement
• Role of leadership, local team buy-in, factors
  influencing change

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Evaluation

• Continually assessing/frequent meetings with
  Reading First
• Constantly tweaking ( ex. saw need for support in
  data driven instruction)
• SIG gave support to DOE literacy coaches who
  worked with teachers (increased ownership by
  literacy coach on data, interventions, etc.)

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Sustainability

• Give it away!
• Established partnership with Reading First so
  that as they built resources SWD included
• More acceptance from General Education
• Enable the resources! 17 GLRS centers have
  trainers, materials and support mechanism for
  schools
• Continued networking within DOE and agencies

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Questions?

• What worked for you?
• Let me know your successes!
• Julia Causey
• Georgia Department of Education
• 404-657-9954
• jcausey_at_doe.k12.ga.us