Engagement MATtERS Arkansas
Engagement updates for the families, schools and communities of Arkansas
November 2022
fall family fun
Back-to-school season is a time of hope, possibilities, and, chances to meet and greet face-to-face!
From huge turnouts for Back-to-School Bashes, to Grandparents Day, to Hispanic Heritage Family Nights, workshops for Spanish speaking parents, to shoe-tying lessons from parents, reading events, and more— Arkansas families and community members are showing up at their schools to support their kids.
Genoa Central hosts watermelon-themed Back-to-School Bash; Parkway Elementary in Bryant invites parents to get super hands-on helping all the kids learn to tie shoes; Malvern Elementary School welcomed more than 300 grandparents to their campus.
Parkway Elementary in Bryant hosts Hispanic Heritage night. In addition, Bryant School District's interpreters taught Spanish-language families how to navigate the online routes to grades, attendance, and Google Classroom in order to assist their students at home.
Mountain Pine conducts 21st Century Community Learning Center (21st CCLC) afterschool reading program for younger students.
Batesville's Southside Elementary welcomed families for fun learning during their well-attended Literacy Land event in September.
room 203 provides oasis for high school students
Ask a student at Watson Chapel High School about Room 203 and you are likely to get a positive reaction these days.
The Pine Bluff school and its use of Room 203 as a "chill room" for students was featured in a KTHV-11 news story in September, and students featured in the piece say they think its a good step in the right direction for helping teenagers through tough experiences and emotions.
Kerri Williams (left), Family Engagement Coordinator for Watson Chapel School District, founded the program of support for students, which has helped dozens of students since the beginning of the school year.
new arkansas scholarship application system
The Arkansas Department of Higher Education has a new and improved website to apply for state scholarships called "SAMS". The Scholarship Application Management System has replaced the YOUniversal website and is more user friendly than ever before.
"(SAMS)...is aesthetically pleasing, easy to use and I really appreciate being able to upload our documents directly to the application site," one parent said.
SAMS' "My Backpack" feature lets applicants upload pertinent documents, and is also integrated with the state's transcript and federal loan application systems for ease of use. For queries related to Financial Aid Eligibility, students and their families should contact finaid@adhe.edu.
parents serve as role models, mentors for riverside students
In early November, more than a dozen parents stopped by to talk about their various careers and professions with Riverside Public School students, as part of the district's outreach to connect and inspire secondary students with real-life experiences and career options.
K-8 Learning Targets
DESE's Office of Learning Services recently updated the "refrigerator curriculum" of K-8 essential learning targets for literacy, science, math, and social studies. These printable guides give ideas and activities for parents and guardians to help their students learn at home.
dese news nuggets
November is National family literacy month
This month, the RISE program newsletter features explorations of new syllable types and G.U.I.D.E. for Life social-emotional program news, as well as a RISE Reading Calendar that is all about building relationships while celebrating reading. Click here.
schools must address bullying
Bullying is intentional and causes, or likely will cause harm, property damage, a hostile environment, substantial interference/disruption of education/environment. Report any bullying to your child’s school.
Find more about what schools must do to address bullying by visiting this site or contacting the Equity Assistance Center, 501-682-4213.
essa school index released this month
DESE's School Performance and Monitoring Unit recently published a one-page flyer to provide information at a glance for Arkansans interested in looking into the data behind such measures as the ESSA School Index and School Ratings, which will be published this month. According to DESE's Public School Accountability division, 59.9% of schools improved from 2021 to 2022 as compared to 11.79% from 2019 to 2021. Arkansas tested 98.84% of students in ELA and 99.03% of students in Mathematics in 2022.
The flyer is part of a Communications Toolkit provided to districts to assist them with communicating to families and community members about their local schools' performance. The ESSA School Index Indicators document provides an overview of the indicators that make up the ESSA School Index score and explains how the calculations are made.
DESE hosts state's first family mental health night
Families across Arkansas were invited on October 19 to join a free Zoom webinar to explore how to talk to their child about mental health, and learn more about how to help their child and find low-cost or free mental health resources. In Arkansas, 30% of students have two or more Adverse Childhood Experiences, or "ACEs," that can alter a child's wellbeing and ability to learn.
The state's first Family Mental Health Night was hosted by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), with online presentations featuring its partners, University of Arkansas Medical Sciences and Cook Center for Human Connection In addition to scores of parents and caregivers, staff from more than 117 school districts and 188 schools attended the early evening event.
Watch the recorded presentations here. Parents' questions are included, anonymously (beginning at 23:15).
Click here for DESE School-based Mental Health resources and information. School-based providers can learn more UAMS' Trauma Resource Initiative for Schools at tris-ar.org. Cook Center refers stakeholders to its partner website, ParentGuidance.org for free mental health resources nationwide.
dese team takes family and community engagement
"From extra...to essential"
DESE's Engagement Unit staff, led by Coordinator Chelsey Moore, delivered training over the summer and fall for district administrators, teachers, counselors, media specialists, and other licensed personnel throughout the state on the topic of family and community engagement, relating the state's Essentials for engagement and sharing ideas, legal requirements, and best practices for school-family-community efforts that are essential to student success in school and in life.
Family and community engagement is the state's required topic for Professional Development educational credits for 2022-23. Parent and family participation in schools has also been highlighted by U.S. Department of Education secretary Miguel Cardona as a priority, as families play a critical role in how the nation's children are recovering from the pandemic.
The six-person Engagement Unit team at DESE has conducted trainings in multiple venues, including producing the online "From Extra to Essential" course in partnership with Arkansas PBS that is available to all the state's educators via the ArkansasIDEAS course portal. For the in-person sessions, the team worked directly with districts and through the state's 16 educational cooperatives to provide timely discussion and hands-on learning opportunities for hundreds of educators who are committed to strengthening their vital school-family-community relationships.
The team also presented core concepts and research on family and community engagement to the state's education leaders, with DESE's Engagement team highlighting best practices in the Instructional Leader fall issue magazine; producing three sessions at the Arkansas Department of Education's Annual Summit conference in the summer; and with coordinator Chelsey Moore presenting on the topic at the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators' fall conference in October.
#EngagementMattersAR
