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        <h1 class="thinner-title">Parent Involvement and Engagement in the Midwest Child-Parent Center Expansion Program</h1>
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              <img src="/images/Hayakawa_Momoko.jpg" class="img-responsive img-round img-top" alt="Responsive image">
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              <h2 class="profile-img-title">Momoko Hayakawa</h2>
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            <h4 class="authors">Authors: Momoko Hayakawa, Ph.D. & Arthur J. Reynolds, Ph.D</h4>
            <p><a href="/images/hand_outs/Child-Parent-Center-Project-Summary-Page.pdf" target="_blank">Download AERA handout</a></p>
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              <span class="bold-it">Objective:</span> The Midwest Child-Parent Center program (MCPC) is a PreK to 3rd grade (PK-3) program designed to improve low-income children’s school success, in part through enhancing parental involvement in their children’s education. As an innovative and targeted approach to school reform, the MCPC program provides a menu-based system of education and family support services from preschool through third grade.
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              <span class="bold-it">Theoretical Framework:</span> In MCPC, family engagement strategies involve a 2-generation (parent and child) approach to enhancing the parent and the child’s educational skills. The parent involvement component provides comprehensive services led by a Parent Resource Teacher and School-Community Representative in collaboration with the Head Teacher. These services include multi-faceted activities, events, and opportunities to engage parents and family members, and mobilization of community resources. The intent of the model is to increase parent participation in children’s education by forming a school-family partnership and creating a welcoming culture for families to participate in school workshops/activities. With this in mind, each center offers a parent program reflecting the needs of the family through annual family needs assessments and monthly meetings.
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              <span class="bold-it">Main Question:</span> What is the impact of the MCPC from PK-3, by child, family, and program characteristics? 
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              <span class="bold-it">Sample:</span> With an Investing in Innovation (i3) grant from the United States Department of Education (USDE), implementation of the MCPC began in 24 preschool sites and 2 child care centers across five ethnically diverse school districts in Illinois and Minnesota. In the preschool year (2012-13), 2,345 children were enrolled.  Over the course of the five-year period of implementation, over 5,000 children are expected to be served. Furthermore, 1,237 students were enrolled in demographically matched comparison schools. At the start of preschool, 33% of the sample were three-year olds, and 67% were four years old. 68% of the MCPC children and 69% of the comparison children received free lunch. 
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              <span class="bold-it">Methods:</span> To account for responder bias, and to reduce halo effects and self-report bias, we collected data from parents (one survey during the school year), teachers (surveys once in the fall and once in the spring), and Parent Resource Teachers (who collected monthly logs of all parent participation). Through this method, we are able to triangulate data on parent involvement and examine the validity of these items by source.
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              <span class="bold-it">Results:</span> The implementation of the program has encountered several challenges in Year 1 and 2 – resource limitations, lack of staffing, and full parent buy-in. However, through a strong dual-capacity framework for family-school partnerships, as outlined by the Department of Education, we have embedded a recursive feedback process within the program. This has been integral to overcoming hurdles and successfully forming a strong school-family-community partnership. As a result, parent engagement has been relatively high with consistent improvement over time.
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              <span class="bold-it">Significance:</span> Our study demonstrates the importance of an adaptive, menu-based system within a structure with recursive feedback. We will share data demonstrating the MCPC as a successful program that increases parent involvement for economically disadvantaged families across ethnically diverse populations. 
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      <h2>Building Powerful Family Leadership for Educational Success:</h2>
      <h5>PTA Comunitario in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley</h5>
      <p class="reduced-story1">The Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) partnering with five South Texas school districts and community-based organizations (CBOs), is studying the effects of its innovative parent and community engagement model, the PTA Comunitario. </p>
      <p class="btn-space"><a class="btn btn-font btn-aera" href="/aera-2015/Building-Powerful-Family-Leadership-for-Educational-Success/" role="button">View details &raquo;</a></p>
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      <h2>What Does it Take to Form Meaningful Connections among Cultural Brokers, Parents, and Teachers?</h2>
      <h5>Lessons from the i3 We Are A Village Grant</h5>
      <p class="reduced-story2">This question emerged from the evaluation of an Investing in Innovation (i3) grant, entitled We Are a Village, issued by the U.S. Department of Education to the Central Falls, Rhode Island School District. The intervention staffed...  </p>
      <p class="btn-space"><a class="btn btn-font btn-aera" href="/aera-2015/What-Does-it-Take-to-Form-Meaningful-Connections-among-Cultural-Brokers-Parents-and-Teachers/" role="button">View details &raquo;</a></p>
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      <h2>FAST for all Kindergartners:</h2>
      <h5>A Randomized Controlled Trial on Family Engagement and School Climate Effects</h5>
      <p class="reduced-story1">Families and Schools Together (FAST) for Kindergartners is the parent involvement and family engagement strategy used in 60 Title I-eligible schools in Philadelphia. The purpose of FAST is to increase parent social support, improve parent-child relationships, and increase positive family-school engagement.</p>
      <p class="btn-space"><a class="btn btn-font btn-aera" href="/aera-2015/FAST-for-all-Kindergartners/" role="button">View details &raquo;</a></p>
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