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1.0 Education is…
Overview of Chapter 1 1.1 California Context
Are California’s Schools Really Behind? 1.2 International Context
Are U.S. Schools Behind the World? 1.3 Economic Context
Schools for Knowledge Work 1.4 Bad Apples
The High Social Costs of Educational Failure 1.5 Wishful thinking
Grade inflation and cognitive biases
1.6 Progress
Are Schools Improving? 1.7 History of Education
How have Schools Changed Over Time? 1.8 Purpose
What is Education For, Really?
2.0 Students...
Overview of Chapter 2 2.1 Diversity
The Changing Face of America's Students 2.2 Poverty and Race
How Do Students' Backgrounds Affect Their School Performance? 2.3 Health and Learning
What Can Schools Do? 2.4 Parents
A Child's First Teacher 2.5 How Does Education Change
Inputs and Outcomes
2.6 Motivation
What Motivates Students? 2.7 Special Needs
Why Not Teach All Kids Alike? 2.8 Child Protection
Intervention and foster care 2.9 Undocumented
Undocumented Students 2.10 Student Voice
What is the Role of the Student in Education Leadership?
3.0 Teachers
Overview of Chapter 3 3.1 Recruitment
Who Teaches, and Why? 3.2 Preparation and Certification
How To Make a Teacher 3.3 Retention
How to Retain a Teacher 3.4 Teacher Placement
Who Teaches Where? 3.5 Teacher Development
How Do Teachers Improve?
3.6 Teacher Collaboration
How do educators work together? 3.7 Benefits
The Benefits of Teaching 3.8 Teacher Pay
How much are teachers paid? 3.9 Teacher Evaluation
How Do Teachers Know If They Are Succeeding? 3.10 Tenure and Seniority
Teacher Tenure - Good? Evil? 3.11 Pensions
How Good is a Teacher's Pension?
4.0 Spending Time...
Overview of Chapter 4 4.1 Preschool
Yes, Early Childhood Education Matters 4.2 Class Size
How Big Should Classes Be? 4.3 School Hours
Is There Enough Time To Learn? 4.4 Time Management
Spending School Time Well 4.5 Extra Time and Tutoring
When Kids Need More Time and Attention
4.6 Summer
Time to Learn, or Time to Forget? 4.7 After School
What Should Happen After School? 4.8 Attendance
Don't Miss School!
5.0 Places For Learning
Overview of Chapter 5 5.1 Where Do You Live?
Zip Codes and School Quality 5.2 School Choice
Should You Have a Choice of Schools? 5.3 Selectivity
How Schools Sort Students 5.4 At Risk
When Regular School Doesn't Cut It 5.5 Charter Schools
Public schools, different rules
5.6 Private Schools
Tuition, Vouchers, and Religion 5.7 Community Schools
Services beyond classwork 5.8 Principals and Superintendents
The Pivotal Role of an Educational Leader 5.9 School Facilities
What Should a School Look Like? 5.10 School Climate
What Makes a School Good? 5.11 Small Schools
Oops, We Shrunk the Schools!
5.12 Home Schools
How Do They Work? 5.13 Discipline and Safety
Who Rules the School?
6.0 The Right Stuff
Overview of Chapter 6 6.1 Grade-level Expectations
How Do Common Core Standards Work? 6.2 Academic Rigor
Is School Challenging Enough? 6.3 Literacy
Ensuring All Kids Learn to Read, Write and Speak English 6.4 STEM
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 6.5 Tests
Why Tests Matter and How They Work
6.6 Technology in Education
Tools for teaching and learning 6.7 Student Engagement
Making School Interesting 6.8 Arts Education
Creating in School 6.9 P.E. and Athletics
How does sweat and movement help learning? 6.10 Let’s Go!
What Makes a Field Trip Great? 6.11 Career Technical Education
Education for career opportunities
6.12 Service Learning
Learning to Help Others 6.13 Social-Emotional Learning
Education for Mental Health 6.14 Character
Can Values and Habits be Taught? 6.15 Civics, history and geography
How do kids learn about their country and the world? 6.16 World Language Learning
The Cure for Ugly Americans 6.17 Financial Literacy
Learning to Earn
7.0 And a System…
Overview of Chapter 7 7.1 The State
The Buck Stops Here 7.2 The Federal Government
Small money, big influence 7.3 School Districts
In Charge of Most Local Schools 7.4 Thinking Regionally about Education
County Offices, and Crossing Boundaries 7.5 Teachers' Unions
Don't Underestimate Them
7.6 Initiatives and Education
California's Initiative Process and How It Affects Schools 7.7 Who influences education?
Politics, philanthropy and policy 7.8 Accountability in Education
Who monitors the quality of schools? 7.9 When Schools Fail
Interventions and Consequences 7.10 The LCAP
Annual plans for school districts
8.0 …with Resources…
Overview of Chapter 8 8.1 Spending
Does California Spend Enough on Education? 8.2 Education Spending
What can education dollars buy? 8.3 Who Pays for Schools?
Where California's Public School Funds Come From 8.4 Prop 13 and Prop 98
Initiatives that shaped California's education system 8.5 LCFF
The formula that controls most school funding
8.6 Categorical funds
Special education and other exceptions 8.7 School Funding
How Money Reaches the Classroom 8.8 Effectiveness
Is Education Money Well Spent? 8.9 More Money for Education
What Are the Options? 8.10 Parcel Taxes
Only in California... 8.11 Volunteers
Hidden Treasure Trove for Schools
9.0 Success
Overview of Chapter 9 9.1 Measures of Success
For Kids and For Schools 9.2 Student Success
How Well is My Kid Doing? 9.3 Tests
Standardized Measures of Student Learning 9.4 Student Readiness
College and Career 9.5 Education Data
Keeping Track of the School System
9.6 Achievement Gaps
The System's Biggest Challenge 9.7 The Dashboard
Measuring California School Performance 9.8 After High School
What California’s System Provides 9.9 Paying for College
High hopes and college loans
10.0 So Now What?
Overview of Chapter 10 10.1 Blow It Up?
Big Ideas For Education Change 10.2 Go Big
What Money Might Do 10.3 Educational Efficiency
How can schools systems handle budget cuts? 10.4 Change
What Causes Change in Education? 10.5 Learn More
Organizations and Resources

Ed100 Parent Leader Guide: Attendance and School Climate

Ed100 Parent Leader Guide

Getting Started
How to use this Guide
School Funding Basics
What Every Parent Should Know
Get in the Groove
Attendance and School Climate
Parent-Teacher Conferences
Common Core Standards and More
Elections
California Education Election Issues
How are Our Schools Doing?
A look at student achievement

Attendance and School Climate

Great content for your parent meetings

Designed to help busy leaders, this ready-to-go guide makes it easy for you to have conversations that matter. It’s all here: Lessons, sample email invitations, discussion prompts, suggestions on how to take action, and resources including handouts and additional reading.

(Still not sure what this guide is all about? Read the Getting Started section first!

 

The Basics
(Ed100 Lessons to Read and Share)

This section includes lessons and posts to help you develop your school climate and build attendance. Follow these links to read the lessons; scroll down for suggestions about how to use and share them.

School Climate: What Makes a School Good

Ed100 Lesson 5.10: "A growing body of research backs up the common sense observation that a safe school climate matters, and it can be developed intentionally."

English Spanish

Absences: Don't Miss Class

Ed100 Lesson 4.8: "Parents and PTAs can help get kids to school on time. Share this lesson with all your families and school staff. Let them know the importance of regular attendance. The lesson links to time-proven strategies that really work."

English Spanish

Discipline and Safety: Who Rules the School?

Ed100 Lesson 5.13: "When kids get into trouble at school, teachers must decide how to respond. Should they ignore it?"

English Spanish

Communication Resources and Samples

Email or Newsletter
(Suggested content you can customize and use)

Is our school climate as we want it?

School is a huge part of our kids' lives. It's not just about lessons and standards -- school is part of growing up. I'm writing to share lessons with you from Ed100.org related to school climate. These lessons can help us think through important questions like these: Does our school feel like a safe place for learning? What happens when things go wrong?

The California State PTA is working with Ed100.org to help create better-informed school communities. The lessons linked below each take about five minutes to read, and they are available in both English and Spanish. By learning together, we will have more fun, learn more, and have a much bigger chance of turning insights into actions for our school. When you go to Ed100.org, please sign in and remember to select our school in your profile. This will help us keep track of our progress... and might help us win some money in one of Ed100.org's drawings, too!

Please join our school's Ed100 team on ___date at ___time in ___location. We will be discussing the lessons below:

Looking forward to great conversations!

Social Media
(Suggested content you can customize and use)

Facebook

Announcement

We’re discussing school climate and attendance topics with Ed100.org’s Parent Leader Guide at our meeting this month.
Read the lessons and come share your thoughts!

Meeting

Join us at our ____ meeting at _____ for community discussions. This month we’ll be learning more about attendance and school climate with Ed100. Looking forward to great conversations!

Twitter

Announcement

Can we improve our school climate? We’re learning about it with @Ed100_ at our _/_ meeting at ____. Join us!

Meeting

Join us #/# at __pm to discuss #schoolclimate using @ed100_ info. Let's make a difference at our school!

Getting Ready for Your Meeting
(Discussion Prompts, Ideas for Action and Resources)

Discussion Prompts

  • What did you learn from the pre-reading materials from Ed100?
  • Is our school a supportive and inviting place for students to learn?
  • What happens at our school when students break the rules? Is it working the way it should?
  • How does our school communicate with families about school absences? Is absenteeism a problem at our school? Is it getting better or worse, and why? What's working?
  • How often does our school suspend students as a disciplinary measure? Are there patterns in its application?

Ideas for Action

  • Ask your district leaders: is there a plan to review policies about school climate, including attendance and school discipline? How can parents add their voice?
  • What measurements is the school district using related to school climate for its LCAP report? How are the measurements collected? Is the district using the California Healthy Kids Survey? (In English and Spanish.) Where are the results being shared?

Resources

From the California State PTA:

 

From other sources:

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