Lions Quest "Skills for Adolescence" is a schoolwide program designed for middle school students (grades 6-8). The program was designed to promote good citizenship skills, core character values, and social-emotional skills and discourage the use of drugs, alcohol, and violence. The program includes a classroom curriculum, schoolwide…

This document reports on a mini-summit meeting on family involvement in education that was held at the Education Center of the Massachusetts Elementary School Principals' Association. The one-day working conference brought together 95 leaders from K-12 schools, higher education and research institutions, parent involvement advocacy groups, and the…

This interim evaluation reports on the progress of an extensive drug education program in a St. Louis, Missouri school district. Designed to meet seven overall objectives, the project calls for comparisons between experimental and control groups at the elementary and secondary level. Far-reaching activities including staff orientation and…

Twenty years of research on school performance has created a body of knowledge that grounds today's school improvement efforts and has resulted in a concise list of characteristics that are common to high-performing schools. As accountability becomes more and more important, educational leaders across the nation are actively attempting to foster…

Teachers are a vital part of student achievement, a fact that is reinforced in the "Highly Qualified Teachers" section of the No Child Left Behind Act. However, in order to be effective and meet the needs of each student, teachers have to draw on all available resources. Though it is natural to think of these resources as school-based,…

Recruitment of participants is a long-standing practice for many programs serving children and families, although the way in which it is approached varies greatly. This volume is presented as a practical tool for practitioners to use in systematizing their recruitment efforts. Section 1, "Reaching Diverse Families," contains an…

Often the burden of promoting science and engineering fairs falls upon science teachers who have to add the organizational activities for the fair to their normal teaching load. This manual is intended to assist in the science fair process by providing information about how to create a team of volunteers to manage the organizational activities.…

This bulletin focuses on four restorative conferencing models within the juvenile justice system: victim-offender mediation; community reparative boards; family group conferencing; and circle sentencing. The bulletin first describes each of the four restorative justice models, presenting information on background, concept, procedures and goals,…

Successful school/community partnerships incorporate three elements: reciprocity, democratic processes, and access to varied opportunities. Principals can create sound partnerships by looking first to teachers, making schools family-friendly, reaching into their communities, seeking increased responsibility by families, and understanding mutual…

Successful transition planning is a lifelong process in which the student, family members, friends, and professionals come together to develop and act upon a plan that will lead to a successful adult life. For this reason, transition planning has become a part of several federal laws. The most encompassing of these laws, the Individuals with…

The League of Schools Reaching Out is a national project to show how family/community/school partnerships can contribute significantly to school restructuring. It aims to increase the academic and social success of all children, especially those society labels as at risk. The league is attempting to expand the notion that the internal methods,…

This document presents the appendix to the final report on the Child and Family Resource Program (CFRP), a Head Start-affiliated program designed to promote community and family involvement in fostering optimum development of preschool children. (The final report was contained in a series of documents, which included program descriptions from each…

What the empirical evidence suggests about the relationship between parental involvement in noninstructional educational activities or wider networks of community engagement on the one hand and effective schools and student learning on the other is explored. Parent participation is discussed as direct involvement in school governance or as…

In Baltimore, Maryland, 49 schools are working with the National Network of Partnership-2000 Schools at Johns Hopkins University to build comprehensive, permanent partnership programs with their families and communities. This article profiles three elementary schools that attribute their success to action teams, six types of family involvement,…

Describes the Families, Agencies, and Communities Together (FACT) initiative. Active in Utah, FACT is a collaborative effort within communities to assist at-risk children and their families. FACT combines values-based support with flexibility to find community-based solutions. (MKA)