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$50,000 Grant for Family Engagement for High School Success awarded

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01-22-2010

AT&T and United Way Worldwide awarded a $50,000 grant to the United Way of Northern Nevada and the Sierra (UWNNS).  This funding is part of a new initiative designed to help parents and caregivers get more involved in their child's education. 

UWNNS has partnered with the Washoe County School District (WCSD), the Nevada State Parent Information & Resources Center (PIRC), the Education Alliance of Washoe County, and the Ready for Life Washoe County to work collaboratively on implementing a plan to improve student achievement and increase graduation rates for at-risk students in the WCSD by empowering their families with the knowledge they need to support their children's academic achievement. 

UWNNS is one of 15 local United Ways receiving a matching grant through this initiative to identify best practices for family engagement to boost high school graduation. The 15 sites will use funds to increase family-community-school partnerships to build successful learning in high school. 

"The Education Alliance and Nevada State PIRC are very excited to be one of the fifteen local partnerships to improve family engagement support to our local high schools," said Denise Hedrick, Executive Director of the Education Alliance.

The grant funds will be used for planning and gathering data to outreach and engage parents.  Specific goals will include strengthening home-school relationships; enabling families to understand student data so that they can better track and monitor student attendance and grades; linking family engagement to student learning; and building the capacity of schools and teachers to engage family involvement in the community.    Teams will be formed at each of the WCSD high schools and will include an administrator, counselor, teacher, and parent.

"The Washoe County School District is committed to making the district accessible to all parents. We know parents are a child's first teachers. We are pleased to be partners with United Way and the Education Alliance to assist parents with understanding how schools work so that they may fully support their children's efforts to achieve academic excellence," stated Dr. Heath Morrison, the Superintendent of Schools for Washoe County.