Community Involvement
Through funding provided by a grant from the National Corporation for Volunteerism, the Rogers and Springdale School Districts have collaborated on a project that provides 30 full-time AmeriCorps members who represent either the Hispanic or Marshallese community to serve in the elementary and secondary schools. This family outreach program provides the following services, enabling volunteers to:

• work as parent liaisons for communication/translation services and accompany school personnel on home visits;
• provide training for parents of elementary students in family literacy development;
• provide support to parents during training in general parenting skills such as nutrition, discipline, problem solving, and orientation to community resources, and;
• serve as communicators in advising the parents of secondary students about school attendance patterns.
• Anticipated outcomes of this family outreach program include:
• Increasing the number of families that are directly involved in school related activities;
• Increasing the capacity of parents to build literacy skills with their children;
• Increasing the awareness and practice of good parenting skills;
• Increasing levels of attendance by secondary school students.

Rogers School District
Contact: Ashley Kelley (479) 636-3910
Date listed: May 30, 2006

Parent Involvement
By telephone or through letters, teachers call parents of students in grades K-4 after open house. The contact is very positive in welcoming the new student to our school. We feel the first contact from a teacher should be a good one. We don’t want to wait until the child is having problems or is in trouble to contact our parents. This practice opens up a positive relationship between our teachers and parents. Our teachers also contact the parents each semester with an update on the student’s progress.

Bald Knob School District
Contact: Tammy Long (501) 724-3714
Date listed: May 30, 2006

Parent or Community Involvement
Paris Elementary School has had a strong Parent/Community Involvement Program for 15 years. In that time, parents and community members have volunteered thousands of hours toward assisting in our school in multiple ways. One of the ways is through a program we call “Job Share.” One day a month at every grade level, kindergarten through 5th grade, a parent or community volunteer comes to the school and shares his or her job with student grade groups. During their presentations, the volunteers explain what they do, the education needed to perform their jobs, and the importance of their work to their family and their community. Students are encouraged to ask questions to learn more about the various kinds of jobs available and the requirements for success in that area of work. Often parents of students at particular grade levels offer to do presentations for that grade. At other times we enlist the help of community members and assign them to specific grade levels based on what they do and their comfort level with the students. Our volunteers point out, better than teachers can, the importance of knowing how to read well, do mathematics, be reliable, and work cooperatively with others. Those involved in the presentations can also express to students why they chose their jobs and the satisfaction they get from doing something they enjoy.

Paris School District , Paris Elementary School
Contact: Margaret Wilks (479) 963-3143 mwilks@paris.k12.ar.us
Date listed: May 30, 2006

Student Career Planning
Students in grades 8-11 all participate with a teacher trained as an advisor in sessions throughout the school year using a curriculum that will assist students in reaching their future goals. This program is called CAP (Career Action Planning). The career orientation class, taken during the 8th grade, provides the foundation for the career planning process. As a part of the career orientation class, students take a career interest inventory that is expected to guide them in aligning course selection through their high school career. In April of each year, the students and their parents meet with their assigned CAP advisor. During this time the parents, student, and the teacher serving as the CAP advisor review academic test scores, revisit career interest test data, and help plan the following year’s schedule. Each year, 98% of our parents participate in this process.

Springdale School District
Contact: Jan Struebing (479) 750-8832
Date listed: May 30, 2006

Parent or Community Involvement
The Siloam Springs High School Scholarship Program began in 1977 through the efforts of two mothers and a high school principal. They wanted to see students received not only athletic scholarships, but more scholarships geared toward academic achievement over the high school years. The program celebrated its 30th Anniversary in May 2006 by giving 163 students out of a class of 231, 456 scholarships that totaled $438,250. Over 30 years, this program has had 2480 students apply for local scholarships, with 2462 students receiving 6383 scholarships that have totaled $5.7 million. One hundred percent of students who have completed a local scholarship application have received at least one scholarship since 1994. The Scholarship Program's basic mission is to enable the community to provide financial funding for higher education in order to prepare our youth for a better tomorrow. As a result, there has been a strong sense of civic pride developed in Siloam Springs. "A gift of education is a gift that keeps on giving".

Siloam Springs School District
Contact: Grady Nichols (479) 524-2108
Date listed: June 15, 2006

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