Family Engagement – Web-based Technical Assistance Package
Families can be their children’s strongest advocates for promoting quality neighborhood schools and to ensure excellent academic instruction – where children are safe, happy, learning and engaged.
The IDRA EAC-South’s Family Engagement Web-based Technical Assistance Package is designed to provide educators tools for embracing what, for many, is a new vision for engaging with families and community members.
This web-based package includes five chapters, each with a video and supporting resources.
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Diversifying the Field – Web-based Technical Assistance Package
Recruiting and Retaining Teachers of Color
See our new resources on recruiting and retaining teachers of color. Resources include
- Three chapter videos with an introduction, state strategies and district strategies
- Interactive Map: Student-Teacher Demographic Diversity Gap
- On-Demand Webinar: Diversifying the Field: Recruiting and Retaining Teachers of Color
- Literature Review Summary
- Literature Review
- State- and District-Level Strategies
- Article: Strategies for Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse, High-Quality Teacher Workforce
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Equity-based Framework for Achieving Integrated Schooling
The Equity-based Framework for Achieving Integrated Schooling is designed to assist school districts and communities in designing racially and economically integrated schools. It provides a structure for identifying areas of need or support to ensure all students acquire the incredible societal and academic benefits of integrated schooling.
Resources include
- Narrative Publication: Equity-Based Framework for Achieving Integrated Schooling – A Framework for School Districts and Communities in Designing Racially and Economically Integrated Schools
- Classnotes Podcast Episode: Achieving Integrated Schooling
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Using Socioeconomic Indicators as a Tool for School Diversity and Integration
See our literature review and new resources K-12 integration strategies that are being implemented and what we know about the design and implementation of such policies that might create more diverse schools and reduce racial isolation.
Resources include
- Literature Review Summary
- Literature Review
- Article: Using Socioeconomic Indicators as a Tool for School Diversity and Integration
- Classnotes Podcast Episode: Using Socioeconomic Status for School Integration – #172
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Grow Your Own Educator Programs –Emphasizing Equity-based Approaches
See our literature review and new resources on emphasizing equity-based approaches to grow your own educator programs. The lit review was developed by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D., of the University of Texas at Austin.
Resources include
- Literature Review Summary
- Literature Review
- Special Edition – Strategies
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Focus Area Resources
With roots in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federally-funded equity assistance centers help school districts build capacity to confront educational problems occasioned by race, national origin, sex and gender, and religion.
Race Equity Resource Page
National Origin Equity Resource Page
Sex/Gender Equity Resource Page
Religion Equity Resource Page
Six Goals of Educational Equity
Every child in each school district, of any background, should have the chance to excel. Schools must ensure that all students are on track to graduate, prepared for college. Public schools can do what they choose to educate their students within certain limits and parameters, but they are accountable for educating all learners to high academic standards and outcomes regardless of differing characteristics of those learners. To help schools and communities look together at these goals and create a plan of action, the IDRA has outlined Six Goals of Educational Equity that school personnel and communities can use as a yardstick to measure their progress and as a lightning rod to galvanize change.
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IDRA Newsletter
The IDRA Newsletter is published 10 times a year, with each edition focusing on a particular issue in education. It serves as a vehicle for communication for policymakers, school board members, school and district administrators, teachers, parents, researchers and university faculty across the United States. The newsletter is available by mail and email.
See current and archived issues of the IDRA Newsletter
Subscribe to receive the newsletter and IDRA news via email
Classnotes Podcast
Classnotes is IDRA’s free award-winning podcast series for teachers and administrators that explores issues facing U.S. education today and strategies to better serve every student. See an index of shows by topic. Listen from your computer or from an MP3 player, like your phone or iPod. Subscribe for free through iTunes. And if you like our show, please leave a short review for us in iTunes!
See Podcast Episodes
College Bound and Determined
This report shows how the Pharr-San Juan Alamo school district in south Texas transformed itself from low achievement and low expectations to planning for all students to graduate from high school and college. In PSJA, transformation went beyond changing sobering graduation rates or even getting graduates into college. This school district changes how we think about college readiness.
The transformation has resulted in the district doubling the number of high school graduates, cutting dropout rates in half, and increasing college-going rates. In fact, half of the district’s students are earning college credit while still in high school.
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Annual IDRA La Semana del Niño Parent Institute
This annual institute offers families, school district personnel and community groups from across the country the opportunity to network, obtain resources and information, and receive training and bilingual materials on IDRA’s nationally-recognized research-based model for parent leadership in education. The institute is interactive and participatory. All presentations are bilingual (English-Spanish).
See presentations and video from the 2019 event
Ensuring High Teaching Quality to Tap Into Students’ Strengths
In this interview for IDRA’s equity assistance center, PS279 principal Jean Dalton Encke in the Bronx talks about how she uses data and systems to monitor teacher effectiveness and student achievement to ensure that students are succeeding. Having grown up in the Bronx herself, she is passionate about using students’ strengths to help them learn and prepare for college. She has brought in IDRA’s Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program and has a partnership with Lehman College to bolster both literacy learning and exposure to college for students, many of whom may not have seen graduation and college as a possibility. Ms. Dalton Encke is interviewed by Nilka Avilés, Ed.D., an IDRA senior education associate. [18:18 min]
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School Board Member: Tracking the Learning and Tracking the Dollar
School board members have many responsibilities, particularly to monitor student achievement and allocate funds responsibly. In this interview for IDRA’s equity assistance center, Velma Vela Ybarra, a school board member for Harlandale ISD in San Antonio, discusses her motivation and experiences in this important role. Ms. Ybarra is interviewed by IDRA senior education associate, Aurelio M. Montemayor, M.Ed. [9:18 min]
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Contagious College-Going Culture in Elementary School
Often, the question posed to students is: Are you going to college? But at Rebecca Sánchez’s school, the question is: Where are you going to college? Ms. Sánchez is the principal at Gus Guerra Elementary School in the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo school district in South Texas serving a largely economically disadvantaged population, with about half of the students being English learners and a high number of migrant students. In this interview for IDRA’s equity assistance center, she describes how her campus has been transformed through a collaboration with IDRA that included classroom demonstrations on effective instructional strategies and student engagement. She also discusses the relationship the school is building with families as well as the introduction of Semillitas de Aprendizaje in early childhood classrooms. Ms. Sánchez is interviewed by Nilka Avilés, Ed.D., an IDRA senior education associate. [28:49 min]
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