Conference Sessions:
Friday: October 23, 2009

AM- National Home Visit Evaluation Planning Session with Parent Engagement Experts/Researchers Anne Henderson (Annenburg Institute), Karen Mapp and Nancy Hill (Harvard Graduate School of Education), NEA staff and grassroots partners. This session was educational and thought provoking as we had to begin to really figure out what the what, why and how of proving regarding our “theory of change” for students, staff and parents.

Evening- Kick off for weekend meeting with 40 colleagues from around the country who are leading home visit efforts adopted/adapted from our local model with keynote speaker Anne Henderson. Each group updated the larger gathering about their local home visit efforts over the past year.

 

Saturday: October 24, 2009

During this (long) day together, we focused our work on topics that could help grow and sustain local home visiting efforts in our communities. Presentations included an overview of community organizing (education reform and home visit connections), connections between home visit efforts and site or district wide parent engagement plans and an extraordinary professional development training connecting home visits, building cultural competency and individualized instruction led by Sacramento teachers. We worked in large and small groups to learn best practices from each other as well as identify common challenges and opportunities in our local communities. Finally, we had a presentation by Tellin' Stories- a DC based parent engagement project.

 

Sunday: October 25, 2009

On Sunday, our work focused on building our national partnership. We reviewed the goals we set together last year and were impressed with our progress! As a group, we identified our goals and plans as collaboration for the coming year- with data making the top of everyone’s list! We also spent some time exploring funding and policy opportunities for home visits on the national landscape of education reform including the innovation grants.