Step 3: Identify Starting Points
Most schools have some teachers who conduct some practices of partnership
with some families some of the time. How can good practices be
organized and extended so that they may be used by all teachers, at all
grade levels, with all families? The action team works to improve and systematize
the typically haphazard patterns of involvement. It starts by collecting
information about the school’s current practices of partnership,
along with the views, experiences, and wishes of teachers, parents, administrators,
and students. See “Starting Points” (pp. 208-211) and “Measure of
School, Family, and Community Partnerships” (pp. 330-335) for two ways of
assessing the nature and extent of present practices.
Assessments of starting points may be made in a variety of other ways,
depending on available resources, time, and talents. For example, the
action team might use formal questionnaires (Epstein & Salinas, 1993) or
telephone interviews to survey teachers, administrators, parents, and students
(if resources exist to process, analyze, and report survey data). Or the
action team might organize a panel of teachers, parents, and students to
speak at a meeting of the parent-teacher organization or at some other
school meeting as a way of initiating discussion about the goals and
desired activities for partnership. Structured discussions may be conducted
through a series of principal’s breakfasts for representative groups
of teachers, parents, students, and others; random sample phone calls may
also be used to collect reactions and ideas; or formal focus groups may be
convened to gather ideas about school, family, and community partnerships
at the school.
What questions should be addressed? Regardless of how the information
is gathered, the following areas must be covered in any information
gathering: