Partnership Kudos: The National Network of Partnership Schools has again picked the schools, districts, and other organizations it believes have forged the best partnerships between schools and families and communities for improving learning.
For the second year, the group, based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has made the choices from its network of 1,400 schools, 130 districts, 19 state departments of education, and more than 50 other organizations.
Schools and districts applying for the special recognition, which does not include monetary awards, are judged on such elements as teamwork, leadership, plans for action, and how well they carried out those plans.
Joyce L. Epstein, the director of the network, said the winners “confirm that research-based approaches can be applied in practice to help all families become more productively involved in their children’s education at school and at home.”
The winners this year are: the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction; Local School District B, Los Angeles Unified School District, along with Families in Schools; Local School District F, also in Los Angeles; Naperville (Ill.) Community Unit School District 203; Baltimore City Detention Center School; Colerain High School, Cincinnati; Cottonwood Elementary School, Cincinnati; Highlands Elementary School, Naperville, Ill.; Kennedy Junior High School, Naperville; Magnet Middle School, Stamford, Conn.; Mount Logan Middle School, Logan, Utah; and Westlake Elementary School, New Carlisle, Ohio.
Adoption Education: Celebrate Adoption, a nonprofit group based in Bennington, Vt., is offering educators across the country a new resource to help them talk with students about adoption.
“An Educator’s Guide to Adoption” explains basic information about the adoption process, reviews some research about adopted children, and gives the names of famous people who were adopted or had adopted children. For instance, the singer Nat King Cole and Apple Computer founder Steven Jobs were adopted.
What’s more, the handbook offers suggestions for how educators should address the questions children may ask about adoption, from “Why did your real mother give you away?” to “Why can’t you speak Chinese if you’re from China?”
Information on ordering the guide is available online at www.celebrateadoption.org.
