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Federal Title I legislation defines parent involvement as:  The participation of parents in regular, two-way, meaningful communication involving students’ academic learning and other school activities. The involvement includes ensuring that parents play an integral role in assisting their child’s learning; that parents are encouraged to be actively involved in their child’s education at school; that parents are full partners in their child’s education and are included, as appropriate, in decisionmaking and on advisory committees to assist in the education of their child.

The Six Slices of Parent Involvement were adopted by Project Appleseed in 1996 from the framework developed by Dr. Joyce L. Epstein, director of the Center on Families, Communities, Schools, and Children’s Learning at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.  The Center’s mission is research, evaluation, policy analysis and dissemination in order to produce new and useful knowledge about how families, schools, and communities influence student motivation, learning, and development.

Slice 1 – VOLUNTEERING
GOAL: Recruit and organize parent help and support

SAMPLE BEST PRACTICES

• Distribute Project Appleseed’s learning compact known as the Parental Involvement Pledge to recruit and organize parent volunteers. 

Distribute Project Appleseed’s Parental Involvement Report Card. The Report Card is intended to help parents evaluate their contributions to their child’s success at school. 

• Use the Parental Involvement Pledge Volunteer Information Survey to identify all available talents, times, and locations of volunteers.
  
• School and classroom volunteer program to help teachers and administrators students and other parents.
  Parent room or center for volunteer work, meetings, resources for families.
  
• Class parent, telephone tree, or other structures to provide all families with needed information.
  
• Parent patrols or other activities to aid safety and operation of school programs.

In a U.S. Department of Education study, a majority of Title I schools indicate that compacts help promote family involvement.  Title I principals were asked to rate the helpfulness of compacts in achieving different types of school and family outcomes.  Responses tended to differ by school poverty, with the highest-poverty schools finding compacts most helpful.In the highest-poverty schools, 85 percent of principals found Title I compacts helpful in supporting homework completion.

• About 8 out of 10 principals in high-poverty Title I schools rated compacts as helpful, as did a majority of principals in low-poverty schools.

• Across all schools, about 30 percent of the principals considered compacts “very helpful”.

• Principals perceived compacts as having the greatest impact on homework completion, school climate, student discipline, and reading at home—factors that are amenable to intervention by school-family partnership activities.

Slice 2 – PARENTING
GOAL: Help all families establish home environments to support children as students.

SAMPLE BEST PRACTICES

• School provides suggestions for home conditions that support learning at each grade level.
  
• School provides workshops, videotapes, and/or computerized phone messages on parenting and child-rearing at each grade level.
  
• Parent education and other courses or training for parents (e.g., GED, college credit; family literacy).
  
• Family support programs to assist families with health nutrition, and other services.
  
• Home visits at transition points to preschool, elementary, middle and high school; and neighborhood meetings to help families understand schools and to help schools understand families.

Slice 3 – COMMUNICATING
GOAL: Design more effective forms of school-to-home and home-to-school communications with all families each year about school programs and their children’s progress.

SAMPLE BEST PRACTICES

• Conferences with every parent at least once a year, with follow-ups as needed.
  
• Language translators assist families as needed.
  
• Weekly or monthly folders of student work are sent home and reviewed, parental comments returned to teacher.
  
• Parent and student pick-up of report card, with conferences on improving grades.
  
• Regular schedule of useful notices, memos, phone calls, newsletters, and other communications.
  
• Clear information on choosing schools, or courses, programs, and activities within schools.
  
• Clear information on all school policies, programs reforms, and transitions.

Slice 4 – LEARNING AT HOME
GOAL: Provide information and ideas to families about how to help students at home with homework and other curricular-related activities, decisions, and planning.

SAMPLE BEST PRACTICES

• Information for families on skills required for students in all subjects at each grade.
  
• Information on homework policies and how to monitor, and discuss schoolwork at home.
  
• Information on how to assist students to improve skills on various class and school assignments.
  
• Regular schedule of homework that requires students to discuss and interact with families on what they are learning in class (e.g., TIPS).
  
• Calendars with activities for parents and students at home.
  
• Family math, science, and reading, activities at school.
  
• Goal setting for students with families each year, and for future plans for college or work.

Slice 5 – DECISION MAKING
GOAL: Include parents in school decisions, developing parent leaders and representatives.

SAMPLE BEST PRACTICES

• Active PTA/PTO or other parent organizations, school advisory councils, or committees (e.g., curriculum, safety, personnel, and other committees) for parent leadership and participation (Go to http://www.projectappleseed.org to start a parent group).
  
• Independent advocacy groups to lobby and work for school reform and improvements.
  
• District level councils and committees for family and community involvement.
  
• Information on school or local elections for school representatives.
  
• Networks to link all families with parent representatives.

Slice 6- COLLABORATING WITH COMMUNITY
GOAL: Identify and integrate resources and services from the community to strengthen school programs, family practices, and student learning and development.

SAMPLE BEST PRACTICES

• Information for students and families on community health, cultural, recreational, social support, and other programs or services.
• Information on community activities that link to learning skills and talents, including summer programs for students.
• Planned service integration of school in partnership with businesses, civic, counseling, cultural, health, recreation, and other agencies and organizations.
• Service to the community by students, families, and schools (e.g., recycling, art, music, drama, and other activities for seniors or others, etc.)
• Alumni to link to school programs for students

Looking for more ways to trim the fat from your everyday expenses?  Here are 54 ways! Use the link below:

Money Saving Tips–54 Painless Ways to Save Money.

With the economy in the state it’s in these days, you have to tighten up the reigns at every step.  In what ways do you trim the fat from your budget?

Passion For Savings is owned and operated by Heather Schisler – A Stay at home mom to a 3 year old little boy and 1 year old little girl. Heather believes that saving money is about more than just using coupons and that you can save money on everything you buy from Toothpaste to Designer Jeans! With a firm belief that High Quality at a great Price = Value Heather is always looking for the best products at the best prices. Follow along on her journey of saving money and discover your Passion For Savings!

Here is one of her videos from her website:  Extreme Couponing

Do you think that couponing is a great way to pinch pennies?  Let us know some of your money-saving tips!

The Printing Press is About to Change the World Again!

A revolution is quietly emerging in the solar industry that could turn the solar world upside down.

This is what is looks like:

Today, scientists are testing various methods of printing solar panels using ink-jet printing technology. It’s cheap. It’s fast. It’s about to revolutionize your life.

“The future is here. It’s just not widely dispersed yet”

Solar power has several advantages and one BIG disadvantage:

Advantages:

• Energy input is free! The sun’s energy is available without the cost of drilling a well, strip mining or costs related to energy input.
• Solar power can be localized. It doesn’t require billions of dollars of infrastructure to connect every home and business to a delivery grid. This makes delivery FAR cleaner and greener than other energy sources.
• Solar power is not subject to market fluctuations. Once a system is installed, the cost of energy will be the same regardless of market conditions. It is not affected by inflation, shortages or market manipulation by traders.

BIG Disadvantage:

• Solar is expensive!

Printable solar technology is about to
ELIMINATE THE ONE DISADVANTAGE OF SOLAR!

The technical team at OMVS is working with scientists at Texas Southern University to advance this new printable solar technology and to develop the infrastructure to deliver this revolution to the markets. See, Our Technology.

That’s right, “The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.”

Why do you care?

If you could have invested in cell phone companies and manufactures when they were little, you’d be rich today. If you would have foreseen the new technologies developed by Apple and invested early, you’d be rich today. If you would have done the same with Dell, FedEx and dozen’s of other successful companies, you’d be rich today.

It is the ability to see the future that is here but is not widely dispersed yet that allows the smartest investors to outperform the herd that follows a few years later. We believe that printable solar is the future and it’s here now for those who can see it with us.

Answer: TV commercials. Print ads. Direct mail. Brochures. Billboards. Flyers. Ads on the back of bathroom stall doors.

Everything except Yellow Pages, right? Truth is, YP advertising is very important to your business.

The fundamentals are tricky and the competition stiff. But these quick tips explain the advantages and essentials you need to create your own YP ad:

Ad Placement
YP ads are placed from biggest to smallest.  Full page ads, 3/4 and so on. Flip through your phone book and take a look at the restaurants section. The very first full page ad you see is not randomly placed. This advertiser has had their full page ad the longest. If they were to give up their full page ad and downgrade to a 3/4, they would be the very last 3/4 ad you’d see until a newer advertiser bought a 3/4 page ad. It’s all seniority-based. So if someone has the highest level 3/4 page and upgrades to a full page, they’re still last until someone newer buys the same type ad.

Color
Research is conducted every year to see if a color ad generates more response than a black and white. Every year, the results are the same. Color ads do not out-pull a b&w. Color ads are also more expensive so this is a cost to consider eliminating from your ad budget.

Headline
Tell your customers the benefits of buying your products/services immediately! There’s not much time so you have to grab a potential customer’s attention. Tell them how long you’ve been in business, why you are different from your competitors and what associations you belong to.

Open 24-7
Another YP benefit is that they’re available 24-hours a day. People are usually ready to make a purchase or get more information when they use the Yellow Pages.

Research Proven
Studies show eight out of 10 consumers contacted a contractor from an ad in the Yellow Pages. Out of that number, 40% made a purchase and an additional 40% said they were likely to make a purchase.

Target Market
One of the unique advantages of YP ads is the ability to target an audience in a specific geographical area.

365 Days A Year
No matter how much begging and pleading you do, it won’t make a difference. Once your ad goes in the Yellow Pages, it’s going to stay that way for an entire year. Proofread! Proofread! Proofread! If you sell “dogs” and your ad says you sell “dots” then you’ll have to wait until next year to fix the error.

As you can see, there’s a lot more to YP ads than just throwing your name, address and phone number in a box. That’s why there are plenty of advertising agencies exclusively devoted to YP advertising.

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©2011 About.com, Inc., a part of The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.

A QR code is a 2-D barcode that can be scanned by a smart phone’s camera and transfer information. Based on the type of code it is, it might direct the viewer to a website, make a phone call, deliver a vCard or more.

How can I market my small business with QR codes?

QR codes are fairly new here in the states (no surprise, they’re big in Japan), so many people won’t recognize them when they see them or won’t have a smart phone with a QR reader installed, which limits their impact. Most current advertisements that use QR codes still have to explain how they work, and the steps the person has to take to access this additional information.

Because of this, you need to determine if QR codes are a good fit for your business and your audience. If you feel there’s a place for QR codes in your marketing toolbox, here are some creative suggestions on how you can take advantage of QR codes.

1. QR Codes on business cards. OK, not the most creative idea ever. In fact, this is probably the de facto way many businesses use QR codes. Rather than overload a business card with all of your contact info you could include the bare minimum for reaching you, then create a QR code that leads people to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, Plaxo, Yelp, FourSqure, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Whrrl, and MySpace profiles. Little muss, little fuss.
2. Scavenger hunts. Again, for some reason this appears on every [3] list [4] of QR code marketing ideas. Probably because scavenger hunts are fun and engaging, although a lot easier to write about than to administer. Still, for destination marketing, a scavenger hunt approach can be a great way to get visitors to check out places they might not otherwise go.
3. Labeling. Somewhere, a restaurant patron is enjoying wine from your vineyard. They notice the QR code on the bottle and quickly scan it. That takes them to a mobile site where they can learn more about your wine, your vineyard, and links to where you can buy a case for delivery…all before the check comes.
4. Storefront displays. Few retail businesses are open 24/7. Don’t (fully) disappoint potential customers after you’ve left for the day. Create a Shop Online Now! QR code and put it in your storefront window. One quick scan and you’ve turned a potential lost sale into an online customer who’s going to share a lot more of their contact information with you.
5. Promotions, discounts and giveaways. If you want to encourage patronage from the iPhone and Android set, you could create discounts that are specific to the QR codes. You could run these codes in advertisements or post them throughout your store. You could even turn them into a “retweet” so that your shoppers share their discount with their followers.
6. Laptop stickers. Slap a QR sticker of your vCard or website to your laptop, making it easier for other geeks to connect with you when you’re at SXSW [5] or the local coffee shop.
7. T-shirts. Put your QR code on your t-shirt (or parka, in Maine) for some shameless self-promotion. Or, make a bigger impression by printing up 100 t-shirts and put them on 100 interns and have them attend a public event like a ballgame, street fair or campaign stop. For more engagement from the crowd, put different messages on the shirts, so people take more scans of more of your codes.
8. [6]Get funky with your QR Code design. QR codes allow a little wiggle room, meaning that you can “hack” the code itself. A famous, early example is the BBC’s QR Code. However, you can play around with the QR code once it’s been generated in an image editing tool like Photoshop and work in your own logo or brand. Always be sure to test your QR code before printing up a few thousand copies, however.
9. Use QR codes to get Likes and Follows. You can create mobile-friendly landing pages with Facebook like buttons or lead them to your Twitter page for a quick follow. The name of the game is engagement, so a like or follow can create a long-term marketing opportunity. Caveat: so far the Like buttons that QR tags generate lead to the Facebook website rather than the mobile app. I don’t know about you, but I rarely log into Facebook’s website from my phone, so that requires extra steps the average person may not be willing to take.
10. Supplement your retail space. QR codes next to pieces of art could help art galleries move more art, or museums replace those aging audio tape tours. Hardware stores could link to how-to videos on YouTube of how to use specific power tools. Groceries could link to pages that talk about how their products were sourced, and perhaps to interviews of the farmers who grew the food. Electronic shops could bring visitors to review sites so they could get unbiased reviews of stocked products. Or to an e-commerce site where shoppers could buy out-of-stock items. Book stores could link to their own reviews of books on their blog.
11. Increase e-commerce sales. Since QR codes can lead to URLs, you can create a code that will populate a shopping cart with specific products. (Assuming your e-commerce solution can handle that.)
12. Build your email subscriber list. Use your QR code to send people to your email signup. Just make sure you give people a compelling reason to subscribe to your list…otherwise you will have just wasted their time. Not the best way to engage your audience.
13. Get the phone ringing. QR codes can also make a phone call. (Oh, imagine the mischief!) If you want to get the phones ringing–at your business or at campaign headquarters–you can create a code that will dial a predetermined number. Likewise, QR codes can generate SMS text messages.

As you can see, there are plenty of ways to use QR codes to connect and engage your audience. QR codes can provide additional information, including photos, reviews, directions and event dates and times. There’s a certain amount of fun and surprise with QR Codes, so that you can take advantage of a “what’s behind door number one” mentality.

Have you used QR codes in your marketing and communications? If so, how are you using them, and what results have you seen?

Follow @FastCoLeaders for all of our leadership news, expert bloggers, and book excerpts. [7]

Who’s not talking about QR codes lately? Since appearing on the US marketing scene two years ago, QR codes have revolutionized the way businesses promote their products and brands. So what exactly is this stamp sized, abstract art-looking module? And how can your business benefit from it?

Do you use QR Codes and how?

Welcome Bloggers!  We hope to have some good information here, so help us get started today!  We want you to write about good things happening in Southwest Georgia.  Let us know what is important to you so that we can keep our conversation going!