Grand Boulevard Federation

Activity Updates!

Congratulations on PPEN's 5-Year Anniversary!  PPEN held its 5th annual Parent Unity Teach-In and Parent Appreciation Celebration on Saturday, June 5, 2010.  Thanks to all who participated and supports PPEN!  See below for the Power Point Presentation from the event.

Complete your Better Schools Checklist over the summer!  It only takes 10 minutes and it's anonymous. Or copy and paste this link into your browser:  www.surveymonkey.com/s/HXBYGLF.  We already received 100, and Mayo School won a $100 prize for having the most respondents.  Congratulations, Mayo!  

About the Peer Parent Education Network (PPEN)

The mission of the Grand Boulevard Federation’s (GBF) Peer Parent Education Network (Parent Network or PPEN) is to bring parents together to network, share information, learn from each other, and develop solutions for getting involved and improving parent involvement. The Parent Network seeks this by building parent capacity and strengthening parent leadership skills so that parents are equipped with the tools, skills, and information that will help them to become strong advocates for their child’s education. Parents come together because they care about their child’s education, they want to be involved, and they want their children to succeed.

The PPEN was developed in April 2005 that now consists of 30 core parents (75 occasional parents) from more than 30 area schools who are organized to strengthen the leadership and capacity skills of parents in order for them to become long-term partners and advocates for their children’s education.

PPEN’s Founding Assumptions

• Parents listen to each other
• Parents are teachers to their children (parenting is teaching)
• Parents do matter
• Parents want to be involved
• Parents are not always welcomed into the school
• Parents are not always respected by schools
• Parents want their children to succeed

PPEN Goals

1. To improve parental involvement by teaching, inspiring, and motivating each other
2. To help schools become more welcoming & genuinely embrace parents;
3. To improve discipline strategies in school and at home;
4. To unify our parents and community with the school; and
5. To help our children to grow and become successful

The PPEN knows that parent involvement varies from school to school, and that there are inconsistencies about what parent involvement is and should be for parents and for schools. We also knew that parents needed to re-claim what it means to be an involved parent – it’s not a bad thing, nor is it to cause trouble – and they would have a better chance of doing it together with fellow peer parents advocating for children success. Thus, during the first year, the PPEN developed a Parent Involvement Declaration which has become the foundation for which they continue to strive to impact positive parent involvement and gain more confidence in asking questions, and when necessary, holding their schools accountable.

During the second year of the PPEN’s existence, the parents evolved their leadership skills and capacity. Their activities were focused on advocating for resources, demonstrating and promoting meaningful parent involvement through the development of our signature Parent Involvement Declaration, and experiencing leadership roles in school and the larger community, through workshops, presentations, meetings with CPS, our parent-led conference, becoming an LSC or PAC member, and through the media.

After two years, the Peer Parent Education Network is moving towards a new level of leadership that includes taking on a more prominent role of advocacy and organizing to build parent leadership as a means for improving our neighborhood schools.

Attachments:

File	Description	File size	Last Modified
Parent Unity Teach-In & Celebration, Part 1		1867 Kb	07/06/10 11:53
Parent Unity Teach-In & Celebration, Part 2		1796 Kb	07/06/10 11:54