Professional Development
National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS) at Johns Hopkins University is a professional development organization that guides leaders in schools, districts, states, and organizations to apply research-based approaches to their programs of family and community involvement. Tools, training, and materials from NNPS enable leaders to plan, implement, evaluate, and improve their programs and practices of school, family, and community partnerships. The NNPS Handbook for Action contains directions, outlines, inventories, planning forms, and evaluation tools for conducting the NNPS approach.
In addition, NNPS conducts institutes and workshops that build leaders’ abilities to strengthen and sustain their partnership programs. Learn about NNPS Professional Development resources.
Leadership Institute (LI)
The Leadership Institute also welcomes state leaders who will prepare district leaders to strengthen goal-linked partnership programs at the district and school levels.
NNPS also conducts local and regional Leadership Institutes on request.
NNPS Webinars
Webinar for School-Based Action Teams for Partnerships (ATPs)
Thursday, February 22, 2018
NNPS will conduct its annual (free) Webinar for School-Based Action Teams for Partnerships (ATPs), Thursday, February 22, from 2:00-3:30 EST. This webinar is a “refresher” for school teams on NNPS “basics” for starting or strengthening a goal-linked partnership program for the rest of the school year and for the 18-19 school year. Topics include ten steps to partnership success, strengthening the ATP, and how to write a good, goal-linked action plan for the 2018-19 school year to engage more and different families in ways that contribute to academic and behavioral results for students. Members of a school ATP should participate in the webinar together-as a team. District and organization leaders may attend with their schools’ teams.
To register, contact Meg Hine at mhine1@jhu.edu. Note your name, school, and your e-mail address, and the words Register for Webinar for School ATPs, February 22. Materials will be sent two days prior to the Webinar.
NNPS Webinar for Districts, Organizations, and States
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Twenty district and organization leaders registered for the NNPS Webinar for Districts, Organizations, and States on Thursday, January 18, 2018. The leaders were from California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Washington, and Ireland.
Participants planned how to strengthen their own leadership activities and how to guide school-based Action Teams for Partnerships (ATPs) to improve the quality of their partnership programs.
If you missed the 90-minute webinar, you can “attend” the archived recording: https://connect.johnshopkins.edu/p8y7qcn2m13/
The archive will be available until the next leadership webinar. If you have colleagues who assist you with your work on partnerships, you may want to review the archived webinar with them to plan your work for the 18-19 school year.
Questions? Contact Megumi Hine at mhine1@jhu.edu or call 410-516-2318.
NNPS Workshops on the Road
NNPS offers members customized professional development workshops, including basic training for districts and for schools to start their programs, and advanced topics for NNPS members who are ready to tackle tough challenges to involve all families in their locations.
The on-site workshops prepare leaders to plan their work and to facilitate schools’ partnership programs. The workshops also guide schools’ Action Teams for Partnerships to organize and strengthen their programs.
NNPS Workshop topics include:
- NNPS One-Day Workshop for schools’ Action Teams for Partnerships
- Special sessions for district, organization, and state leaders
- Advanced topics such as improving family and community involvement to involve fathers and multicultural families in ways that support student learning in reading, math, and other subjects
More information on the Workshops on the Road Brochure. Brochure
Arrangements for Workshops on the Road are made with NNPS Facilitators, on a mutually-satisfactory schedule and on a first-come, first-served basis.
Evaluation Services
1. Use NNPS resources and data to identify program strengths and weaknesses.
(a) Schedule training in the use of NNPS evaluation tools and resulting data in your location.
(b) Request NNPS to prepare a detailed one-year or multi-year summary of school UPDATE data from your location.These services will help members make better use of NNPS evaluation tools and apply the results of these evaluations in their own locations.
2. Combine NNPS resources and locally-collected data.
(a) Use NNPS surveys to collect parent, teacher, and/or student perceptions of school partnership programs, and request data analyses and a customized report of your survey results.Leaders in some schools and districts want to conduct surveys of parents, teachers, and/or students to learn their attitudes about partnership experiences and ideas for improving family and community involvement programs. NNPS’s surveys may be used for these purposes. NNPS evaluators can, under contract, conduct the surveys, analyze the data, and provide a report.
(b) Plan with NNPS and your district’s evaluation office to connect schools’ UPDATE data to longitudinal student achievement, attendance, or other data to learn if the quality of partnership programs contributes to student outcomes.This service will help members connect their own achievement test score data to the scales and measures that NNPS collects each year.
This will enable districts with a sizable number of schools in NNPS to address the question: Does the quality of our schools’ partnership programs contribute, independently, to changes in student achievement test scores at the school level, after accounting for the prior year’s test scores?
3. Add measures of partnerships to your comprehensive data system.
Learn to add measures of the quality of schools’ partnership programs to your state’s or district’s general data/accountability system. Evaluate all schools (whether they are members of NNPS or not) and integrate measures of family and community involvement in your assessments of schools and in reports to parents and the public.
For more information on the nature and costs of these services, or to arrange workshops, leadership training, or contracts to conduct evaluations or to analyze and report NNPS data from your schools, contact Dr. Steve Sheldon, NNPS Director of Research, at ssheldon@jhu.edu or 410-516-5489.